Former PSS chief Park Jong-jun gets 3 years in prison on appeal for obstructing Yoon’s arrest; court cites his admission and remorse

[Financial News] Former Presidential Security Service chief Park Jong-jun and other former senior PSS officials were also sentenced to prison terms on appeal after being convicted in the first trial of obstructing the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) from executing an arrest warrant for former President Yoon Suk Yeol. Park was sentenced to four years in prison in the first trial.
The Seoul High Court’s Criminal Division 1, presided over by Judge Yoon Sung-sik, sentenced Park to three years in prison on the 28th for charges including obstruction of special official duties, reducing his sentence by one year from the first-trial ruling. Kwang-woo Lee, the former head of the security headquarters who was indicted along with him, was also sentenced to two years in prison, a reduction of six months.
The court upheld the original sentences for former PSS deputy chief Sung Kim, who received five years in prison in the first trial, and former head of the family security division Kim Shin, who received one year in prison, suspended for two years. The panel dismissed the appeals filed by both the defendants and the special prosecutor team against the sentences for the former deputy chief and the former division head.
The Special Counsel for Insurrection indicted them on charges including obstructing official duties by blocking the CIO from entering the official residence and otherwise carrying out its arrest warrant for former President Yoon in December 2024 and January 2025. At the closing hearing of the second trial, the special counsel sought prison terms of seven years each for Park and former deputy chief Sung Kim, and five years and three years, respectively, for former security headquarters chief Kwang-woo Lee and former family security division head Kim Shin.
The appeals court cited the fact that Park and former security headquarters chief Kwang-woo Lee admitted to all of their offenses and expressed remorse as grounds for reducing their sentences.
The panel explained, “As the PSS’s highest-ranking official, (Park) could have fully understood that refusing to execute a court-issued warrant was unlawful and that the obstruction of official duties was serious, yet he committed the offenses and must bear commensurate responsibility.” It added, “We took into account that he instructed staff that physical clashes must not occur and did not actively intend any clashes; that he submitted his resignation on January 10, 2025, thereby withdrawing from subsequent offenses and taking responsibility himself; and that at the appeal trial he admitted to all of the offenses and expressed sincere remorse.”
Regarding former security headquarters chief Kwang-woo Lee, the panel added, “He established the PSS’s hard-line response policy, pressuring subordinates and mobilizing them in unlawful situations.” It also said, “We took into account his admission of all the offenses and his remorse at the appeal trial, the fact that his family was dealing with a serious illness, and that some of his actions were carried out on the orders of a superior.”
By contrast, regarding former deputy chief Sung Kim, the panel ruled that the first-trial sentence was within a reasonable range, saying, “He ordered the deletion of military commanders’ secure-phone records and played the most active and hard-line role in the two attempts to block the execution of the warrant, making him a central figure in the organized resistance.”
The court also upheld the guilty verdict against former deputy chief Sung Kim for ordering the deletion of secure-phone call records, as in the lower court. Kim is accused of ordering the head of the PSS support headquarters on December 7, 2024, to delete the secure-phone call records of the commanders of the Republic of Korea Defense Counterintelligence Command, the Capital Defense Command and the Army Special Warfare Command. The panel rejected Kim’s argument, saying, “This constitutes abuse of authority because he used the exercise of his authority as a pretext to commit substantively and specifically unlawful and improper acts, and intent is also established.”
Regarding former family security division head Kim Shin’s alleged obstruction of the execution of an arrest warrant on December 30, the court upheld the lower court’s acquittal on the remaining charges of abuse of authority and harboring a fugitive, apart from some counts of obstruction of special official duties. The panel explained, “It is difficult to conclude that he conspired in the overall offenses with former President Yoon or the other defendants by planning in advance to block the warrant’s execution or receiving instructions to do so.”
[email protected] Chang-hun Lee Reporter