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Yoon is the subject of an investigation for betrayal for his attempt at sloppy martial law
Yoon Suk Yeol, who was officially removed from his duties on Friday, follows a line of former South Korean leaders who had their reputation spoiled or terms interrupted by the scandal.
Among them, the presidents were faced with the indictment, exile and imprisonment.
Yoon, who was the South Korea prosecutor, actually led an investigation that landed former President Park Geun-Hye in prison.
From now on, in addition to being charged, Yoon is also the subject of an investigation for betrayal for his attempted martial law botched last December. Some analysts believe that, ironically, this decision was motivated by his fear of prosecution.
Here is a list of former South Korean presidents whose political careers ended spectacularly.
Forced to exile
Before becoming the first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee spent a few decades as a activist for pro-independence independence against Japanese domination.
But his presidency was polarizing.
While some respect him for having laid the foundations of a modern country after the Second World War, criticism condemns his authoritarian sequence. Shortly after its inauguration in 1948, he implemented laws to reduce political dissent; He was also blamed for the murder of civilians during the Korean War.
The opposition rejected Rhee’s re -election in 1960 and accused him of fueling the vote. This turned into violent protests led by students, who saw certain demonstrators slaughtered by the police and finally forced Rhee to resign.
Rhee left the country for Hawaii in May of the same year, where he died in 1965.
Murdered by close collaboration
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Military leader Park Chung-Hee led a coup in 1961 and become more president
Born from a poor rural family in the first years of the Japanese occupation, Park Chung-Hee joined the army and was assigned to Manchuria (a historic region of northeast of China) where it served until the Japanese surrenders.
Park led a coup in 1961 to overthrow the successor of Rhee, Chang Myon, and later became president. Park led the country for 18 years through a period of rapid economic development known as “Miracle on the Han River”. It was at this time that the government opened doors to foreign investment, while helping to develop conglomerates now famous like Hyundai, LG and Samsung.
However, he headed for greater authoritarianism later in his end. In 1972, he suspended the Constitution, dissolved from the National Assembly and became “president for life”.
Despite Park’s economic achievements, South Korea in the 1970s was shaken by growing demonstrations against its iron rule, where dissidents were brutally punished.
Park was assassinated at a dinner in October 1979 by his own spy chief and friend at Life Kim Jae-Kyu.
Imprisoned for betrayal, a coup and a massacre
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Hundreds of people in Gwangju were killed, and many others injured, tortured and imprisoned after a pro-democracy movement in 1980
Military commander Chun Doo-Hwan took power in 1980 after another coup. He presided over a brutal military repression in the southwest city of Gwangju, which was at the time the center of an uprising against martial law in South Korea. More than 200 pro-democracy demonstrators have been killed or disappeared.
During Chun’s mandate, the country has experienced growth rates oscillating approximately 10% each year. However, he is best known as a dictator without excuse until the end.
In 1983, Chun survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by North Korea forces, which bombed a ceremony in which he was during a state visit to Myanmar. The attack killed 21 people and injured dozens of others.
In 1988, Chun chose his state comrade Roh Tae-Woo, also former general, as his successor.
The couple was sentenced in 1996 for corruption, as well as their roles in the coup d’etat and the Gwangju massacre. Defending the coup during his trial, Chun said that he “would take the same measure, if the same situation happened”.
Chun was sentenced to a death penalty – which was then commissioned from life imprisonment – while Roh was sentenced to 17 years in prison. The two men were pardoned in 1997 after serving only two years in prison.
Took his life during a corruption probe
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Public opinion on Roh Moo-Hyun has improved considerably after his death
Born from a poor family, Roh Moo-Hyun was educated and succeeded in the bar exam to become a lawyer without having attended the law. He was appointed judge in 1977, but then left the bench to become a human rights lawyer, where he pleaded for militant students accused of being a pro-communist.
In 2002, ROH won the presidential election as an oppressed, the first surveys giving it only 2% of the votes. He tried to shape South Korea as a “average power” among other stakeholders in the region and defended a so -called Sun policy to hire North Korea with trade and assistance expeditions.
After leaving his duties in 2007, he returned to his hometown in the Southeast and managed a duck farm. However, he committed suicide 14 months later, while corruption investigators closed allegations that he accepted $ 6 million in bribes.
Public opinion on Roh improved considerably after his death. Gallup Korea’s polls have always classified him the most loved president in the history of the country.
Imprisoned for corruption
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Park Geun-Hye was the first woman president of South Korea, as well as her first democratically elected leader, to be forced
The former CEO of Hyundai, Lee Myung-Bak, entered politics in 1992 and was elected mayor of Seoul a decade later. He won the elections by a landslide in 2007, even if a commercial scandal of his days during the automotive conglomerate resurfaced in the days preceding the vote.
Lee directed the country through the global financial crisis and won its offer for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. His mandate ended in 2013, and he was succeeded by the first woman president of the country, Park Geun-Hye, who is the daughter of former murdered chief Park Chung-Hee.
The young park relied on his father’s reputation as a man who left South Korea from poverty. However, a corruption scandal involving a confidant, choi soon – the daughter of a shamanist head of worship – led to his dismissal in 2016 and his arrest a year later.
Five years after leaving his duties, Lee was also accused of corruption and found guilty of creating tender snow funds from tens of millions of dollars and taking bribes from various sources, including Samsung.
Park received a 22 -year -old sentence and the 15th, but both have since been pardoned.
