Bread, soup, soy milk: South Korean leader’s life in jail

SEOUL – As president of South Korea, Mr Yoon Suk Yeol lived in a luxurious hilltop mansion, threw parties and had a small army of personal guards.

These days, he is alone in a 9.9 sq m cell, eating simple food such as noodles and kimchi soup, and sleeping on the floor.

This will be his new reality for a while yet, after he was

formally arrested on insurrection charges

as part of an investigation into his ill-fated declaration of martial law in December 2024.

Mr Yoon, 64, has been in the Seoul Detention Centre, a government-run jail south of Seoul, since Jan 15, when he became the first sitting president in South Korean history to be detained in a criminal investigation.

When a district court in Seoul issued the warrant to arrest him, he went from being a temporary detainee to a criminal suspect facing an indictment and trial.

That change in status means that Mr Yoon is unlikely to leave jail anytime soon. Within the next 18 days, criminal investigators and prosecutors are expected to indict him on charges of leading an insurrection during his short-lived martial law in December. If he is convicted, he will face life imprisonment or ​the death penalty.

Mr Yoon’s new circumstances are symbolic of his dramatic fall from grace: from a swaggering head of state to an impeached president to an inmate accused of committing one of the worst offences in the nation’s criminal code.

He is the first South Korean to face insurrection charges since former military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was convicted in the 1990s.

As president, Mr Yoon loved to throw parties, often inviting like-minded politicians to evening drinks and even cooking and serving ​rolled egg and barbecue to his presidential press corps. He showed off his well-honed entertaining skills ​abroad when he belted out American Pie during a White House dinner in 2023.​

Now, Mr ​Yoon will wake up ​not to presidential aides and chefs catering to his needs, but to a simple jail breakfast usually made up of dumpling soup, bread or cereals. ​An average meal in jail costs US$1.20 (S$1.60).

The dramatic political upheaval he unleash​ed appears to have stunned him as much as everyday South Koreans.

“Ironically, it was after I was impeached that I truly realised​ that I am, indeed, the president,” he said in a lengthy statement on Jan 15. NYTIMES