Former Presidential Security Service Chief Park Jong-jun appears at the Serious Crime Investigation Division of the National Police Agency in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, last January to be questioned on charges of obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant against President Yoon Suk-yeol (obstruction of special official duties). Senior Staff Reporter Jeong Ji-yoon

Former Presidential Security Service executives indicted on charges of blocking the execution of an arrest warrant for former President Yoon Suk-yeol were sentenced to prison terms at the first trial and were taken into custody in court.

The Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 26 (Presiding Judge Lee Hyun-kyung) on the 9th sentenced former Presidential Security Service Chief Park Jong-jun and former Deputy Chief Kim Sung-hoon to four and five years in prison, respectively, on charges including obstruction of special official duties. Former Security Headquarters Chief Lee Kwang-woo was sentenced to two years and six months, and former Family Protection Department Chief Kim Shin was sentenced to one year with a two-year suspended sentence.

The court then issued detention warrants for Park, Kim, and Lee, who received prison terms.

They were indicted on charges of blocking investigators from entering the residence by, among other methods, erecting barricades, when the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials and the police attempted to execute an arrest warrant for former President Yoon. Kim, the former deputy chief, is also charged with ordering the deletion of secure phone call records for three military commanders in accordance with instructions from former President Yoon.

On this day, the bench found most of the charges against the Presidential Security Service executives to be proven. The court held, “The defendants had no grounds to refuse the execution of the arrest and search warrants issued by the court,” and, “Nevertheless, they systematically obstructed the investigation and judicial proceedings against Yoon Suk-yeol, a suspect in insurrection, resulting in the hollowing out of the legal order and its functions.”