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A Seoul court on Thursday sentenced a former presidential secretary to 18 months in prison for drafting a false document in connection with former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed 2024 martial law bid. The Seoul Central District Court handed down the punishment for Kang Eui-gu, finding him guilty on charges of creating a false official document by drafting a cover of Yoon’s martial law proclamation on Dec. 6, 2024, three days after his declaration. The court accepted special counsel Cho Eun-suk’s argument that Kang had created the document and collected signatures of Yoon, then Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and then Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun to give the martial law declaration an appearance of procedural legitimacy. “After becoming aware of the error that martial law took place without a document containing the president’s signature and countersignatures of Cabinet members, (the defendant) newly drafted a cover that did not exist for the already distributed proclamation to conceal (the error),” the court said. The court, however, acquitted Kang on charges of exercising a false officia