Yoon Suk-yeol

Yoon Suk Yeol (born 18 December 1960) is a South Korean politician who is the 13th (20th election) and current president of South Korea since 2022.

Yoon was born in Bomun-dong, Seongbuk District, Seoul, in 1960 and raised in Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun District.

His father, Yoon Ki-jung, was born in Nonsan and was a professor emeritus of economics at Yonsei University and a full member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Korea.

His mother, Choi Seong-ja, was born in Gangneung and was a lecturer at Ewha Womans University before leaving the position after getting married.

Yoon attended Daegwang Elementary School and Joongrang Middle School, transferring to Choongam Middle School after finishing eighth grade.

After graduating from Choongam High School, he studied law at Seoul National University.

He is a colleague of Moon Kang-bae, a lawyer who described Yoon as an "extrovert and faithful" person.

Shortly after the Gwangju Uprising, Yoon and his colleagues held a mock trial, where he acted as a prosecutor, demanding the death penalty for Chun Doo-hwan, the president of the republic.

Fearing imprisonment for his role in the mock trial, Yoon fled to Gangwon Province.

Yoon was exempted in 1982 from national service due to anisometropia.

Yoon later added that he was unable to obtain a driving licence because of the condition.

Yoon passed the first part of the bar exam in Year 4 of university but failed the second.

He kept failing for the next nine years.

He finally passed the bar in 1991, in the same graduating class as Democratic Party assemblyman and minister of justice Park Beom-kye.

Yoon started his career at Daegu Public Prosecutor's Office in 1994.

He headed the Special Branch and Central Investigation Department, both of which investigate corruption-related cases.

In 1999, he arrested Assistant Commissioner Park Hui-won, who was corrupt despite strong objections from bureaucrats in the Kim Dae-jung cabinet.

In January 2002, Yoon worked briefly as a lawyer at Bae, Kim & Lee but left as he felt that he was not suited to the position.

Upon his return as a prosecutor, he prosecuted such pro-Roh Moo-hyun figures as Ahn Hee-jung and Kang Keum-won.

In 2006, he apprehended Chung Mong-koo for his complicity in a slush fund case at Hyundai Motor Company.

In 2008, he worked for the independent counsel team resolving the BBK incident related to President Lee Myung-bak.

In 2013, Yoon led a special investigation team that looked into the National Intelligence Service (NIS)'s involvement in the 2012 NIS public opinion manipulation scandal.

Yoon sought the prosecution of the former head of the NIS, Won Sei-hoon for violating the Public Official Election Act.

He accused Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn of influencing his investigation.

As a result, he was demoted from the Seoul prosecutors' office to the Daegu and Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office.

Yoon later became head of investigations in the special prosecutor team of Park Young-soo, which investigated allegations pertaining to the 2016 Choi Soon-sil scandal involving Choi, Samsung vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong and then-president Park Geun-hye, which led to the impeachment of the president in December 2016.

On 19 May 2017, the newly elected president Moon Jae-in appointed Yoon as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

The prosecution indicted two former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, three former NIS chiefs, former chief justice Yang Sung-tae and more than 100 other former officials and business executives under his tenure.

Yoon also led an investigation into accounting fraud at Samsung.

Prior to his presidency, he served as the prosecutor general of South Korea between 2019 and 2021.

Born in Seoul, Yoon attended Seoul National University.

In his capacity as the Chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, he played a key role in convicting former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for abuse of power.

Yoon was appointed prosecutor general of South Korea by President Moon Jae-in in July 2019.

During Yoon's leadership, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office conducted embattled investigations into Cho Kuk, an influential figure in President Moon's administration, that would lead to Cho's resignation.

Yoon's clashes with the Moon administration until his resignation as prosecutor general in March 2021 led to his rise as a presidential candidate.

In June 2021, Yoon announced his candidacy in the 2022 South Korean presidential election.

He joined the right-wing People Power Party (PPP) in July, and won the PPP nomination in November.

Considered conservative and economically liberal, Yoon ran on a platform promising economic deregulation and other measures such as abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

Yoon narrowly defeated Democratic Party nominee Lee Jae-myung on 9 March 2022 and assumed office as president on 10 May 2022.

On 17 June 2019, Yoon was nominated as prosecutor general, replacing Moon Moo-il.