South Korea's former prime minister jailed for 23 years in martial law case

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court ruled Wednesday that the ill-fated imposition of martial law by the then President Yoon Suk Yeol constituted an act of rebellion, as it sentenced his prime minister to 23 years in prison for his involvement.

Ex-Prime Minister Han Duck-soo became the first Yoon administration official convicted of rebellion charges in relation to the martial law imposition in December 2024. The verdict is expected to set the stage for upcoming rulings involving Yoon and his other associates, who also face rebellion charges.

Han, who was appointed by Yoon, served as one of the three caretaker leaders during the martial law crisis that led to Yoon’s impeachment and eventually his removal from office.

Rebellion is one of the gravest criminal charges in South Korea, with the independent counsel recently demanding the death penalty for Yoon, who was charged with masterminding a rebellion. The Seoul Central District Court is to rule on Yoon’s rebellion charges on Feb. 19.

In a televised verdict, the Seoul court determined Yoon’s martial law decree amounted to a rebellion, viewing his dispatch of troops and police officers to the National Assembly and election offices as “a riot” or “a self-coup” that was meant to undermine the constitutional order and was serious enough to disrupt stability in South Korea.

The court sentenced Han for playing a key role in the rebellion by trying to give procedural legitimacy to the martial law decree by getting it passed through a Cabinet Council meeting. The court also convicted Han of falsifying the martial law proclamation and destroying it and lying under oath.

Han, 76, who could appeal the ruling, has steadfastly maintained that he had told Yoon that he opposed his martial law plan. He has denied most of the other charges.

The court said Han neglected his responsibilities as prime minister — the No. 2 post in South Korea — to protect the constitution, choosing instead to take part in Yoon’s rebellion in the belief that it might succeed.

“Because of the defendant’s action, the Republic of Korea could have returned to a dark past when the basic rights of the people and the liberal democratic order were trampled upon, becoming trapped in the quagmire of dictatorships for an extended period,” judge Lee Jin-gwan said.

Han's lengthy sentence came as a surprise as the independent counsel earlier requested a 15-year prison term.

He is a career bureaucrat who served as prime minister twice during his 40 years of public service — first under liberal President Roh Moo-hyun from 2007 to 2008 and later under Yoon.

Han became acting president after Yoon was impeached by the opposition-controlled National Assembly later in December 2024. But he was also quickly impeached following wrangling with opposition lawmakers over his refusal to fill vacant seats at the Constitutional Court, which was deliberating whether to formally throw Yoon out of office. Observers said at the time that restoring a full court bench could increase prospects for Yoon's ouster.

The Constitutional Court later reinstated Han as acting president. But after the court formally dismissed Yoon as president in early April, Han resigned to run for the presidency in last June’s snap election. He eventually withdrew from the race after failing to win the main conservative party's nomination.

Lee Jae Myung, a former leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, won the election.

Yoon, who has already been in jail for months, faces eight criminal trials including his rebellion case over the martial law decree and other allegations. Last Friday, Yoon received a five-year prison term at the Seoul court for defying attempts to detain him, fabricating the martial law proclamation and denying some Cabinet members their rights to deliberate on his martial law decree.

Yoon, a conservative, has steadfastly denied the charges of rebellion, saying he only aimed to draw public support of his fight against the Democratic Party which obstructed his agenda. Speaking at a court session last week, Yoon denounced the investigations of his charges as “frenzied," arguing that they involved “manipulation” and “distortion.”

In his martial law declaration, Yoon called the opposition-controlled assembly “a den of criminals” and vowed to eliminate “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces.”

But many of the troops and police officers he sent to the assembly didn’t aggressively control the area as thousands of people gathered there to protest Yoon’s decree. Enough lawmakers ultimately got in an assembly chamber and voted down Yoon’s decree.

No major violence occurred, but Yoon’s short-lived martial law enforcement harkened back to past dictatorships that South Koreans hadn’t seen since the 1980s. The ensuing political turmoil and power vacuum in the country tarnished its international image and rattled its diplomacy and financial markets.

Besides Han, Yoon’s defense, safety and justice ministers, spy and police chiefs as well as some of his top military commanders have been indicted on rebellion and other charges related to the martial law imposition.

Former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, center, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court for his first sentencing trial in the insurrection case, in Seoul Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)

Former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, center, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court for his first sentencing trial in the insurrection case, in Seoul Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)

Former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, center, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court for his first sentencing trial in the insurrection case, in Seoul Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool Photo via AP)

HONOLULU (AP) — A former flight attendant accused of posing as a pilot and working airline employee fooled three U.S. carriers into giving him hundreds of free tickets over a span of four years, federal authorities say. But precisely how he is alleged to have done it — and why the airlines wouldn't have caught on sooner — has industry insiders scratching their heads.

Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in federal court in Hawaii last October. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday following his extradition to the United States. His federal public defender declined to discuss the case.

According to court documents, Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fraudulent employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other airlines. Court documents contained no explanation of why, in an industry focused on flight and airport safety, the airlines would not have recognized the credentials as invalid.

The indictment did not identify any of the airlines involved but said the U.S. carriers are based in Honolulu, Chicago and Fort Worth, Texas. A spokesperson for Hawaiian Airlines said Wednesday the company does not comment on litigation. Representatives for United Airlines and American Airlines did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press.

One Canadian carrier based in Toronto, Porter Airlines, said in an emailed statement it was “unable to verify any information related to this story.” Air Canada, which is based in Montreal but has a major hub in Toronto, said it had no record of Pokornik working there.

John Cox, a retired pilot who runs an aviation safety firm in St. Petersburg, Florida, called the allegations surprising, considering the cross-checking that airlines are able to do to verify the employment of a crew member seeking to fly on another airline.

Airlines generally rely on databases of active airline employees maintained on third-party websites to check whether someone is actually an employee.

“The only thing I can think is that they did not show him as no longer employed by the airline,” Cox said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Consequently when the checks were made at the gate, he showed up as a valid employee.”

Passenger airlines typically offer such free or steeply discounted seats, when available, to their own crew members or those of other carriers — a courtesy that makes the whole industry function better, by getting crew members where they need to go. The seats, which can include “jump seats" with shoulder harnesses in the cockpit or in the cabin, can also be offered up for leisure travel.

Crew members who need to travel to another city for work go through airport security by scanning a “known crew member” card linked to a database that has their photo, said Bruce Rodger, an airline pilot who owns an aviation consulting firm. They also present an employee badge and government-issued identification.

Using the known crew member process for leisure travel isn’t allowed, he said.

For leisure travel, crew members can purchase discounted standby tickets or request a jump seat. With a standby ticket, a crew member reaches the gates via normal airport security screening. It’s possible to have a standby ticket but request a jump seat, which allows the employee to fly for free.

A jump seat for an off-duty pilot in the cockpit must be approved by the plane’s captain. The pilot riding in the jump seat must show the captain a pilot’s license and medical clearance, Rodger said. Those documents aren’t required for flight attendants riding in a jump seat in the main cabin, he said.

In 2023, an off-duty airline pilot riding in the cockpit of a Horizon Air flight said “I’m not OK” just before trying to cut the engines midflight. That pilot, Joseph Emerson, later told police he had been struggling with depression. A federal judge sentenced that man to time served last November.

U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that Pokornik requested to sit in the cockpit's jump seat — typically reserved for off-duty pilots. It was not clear from court documents whether he ever actually rode in a plane’s cockpit, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Honolulu declined to say.

Years ago, the airline industry tightened up the standards for the flight benefits employees receive after the famous case of Frank Abagnale, whose exaggerated 1980 memoir, “Catch Me If You Can,” described posing as a pilot to fly for free, among other cons. His story gained additional fame when Steven Spielberg made it into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio in 2002.

Additional restrictions on who can get aboard a plane and inside a cockpit were imposed by the airlines and FAA after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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AP transportation writer Josh Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.

This story has been corrected to note that Air Canada is based in Montreal, not Toronto.

FILE - A sign for the Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Federal Building and Courthouse is displayed outside the courthouse on Jan. 22, 2024, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Jennifer Kelleher, File)