A South Korean court has imposed a sentence of one and a half years in prison this Thursday on the former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Cho Tae Yong, finding him guilty of having given false testimony in the framework of the investigation into the controversial martial law proclaimed in December 2024 by then-President Yoon Suk Yeol, a decision that cost him his position and resulted in a life sentence.
The court has concluded that Cho lied during a hearing before the Constitutional Court, where he stated that he had not received any type of document sent by Yoon in relation to that critical day when the Armed Forces were deployed in various parts of the country.
The former NIS official has also been sentenced for falsification of public documents and for presenting them as valid evidence, according to the Yonhap news agency. Despite this, the sentence imposed is well below the seven years in prison that the South Korean Prosecutor's Office had initially requested.
Special Prosecutor Cho Eun Suk had also argued that Cho would have "been aware of a plan to mobilize troops and surround the National Assembly with the intention of arresting the present deputies," despite the fact that South Korean legislation obliges the NIS director to provide information on any event with a relevant impact on national security.
Such reports must be delivered to the president and the Parliament's Intelligence Committee without "any delay." However, the court has not found conclusive evidence on this point and has considered it possible that the then-head of Intelligence did not give credibility to part of the warnings that pointed to that eventual military deployment.
Even so, the Prosecutor's Office has reiterated that the accused "made false statements and drafted false public documents to reduce his own responsibility" in the investigated events.