The Seoul Central District Court sentenced former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison on Friday for ordering covert military drone flights over Pyongyang to provoke North Korea into a military response — a manufactured crisis prosecutors say Yoon designed to justify declaring martial law. Former Defence Minister Kim Yong Hyun received the same sentence in the same ruling.
The court found Yoon guilty of benefiting the enemy and abuse of power, ruling that he conspired in the October 2024 drone incursion from the outset. South Korean military drones flew over the North Korean capital on three separate occasions that month.
North Korea accused Seoul of dropping propaganda leaflets and published photos of a crashed South Korean drone as evidence. Tensions between the two countries rose sharply, with Pyongyang threatening to respond with force. Yoon declared martial law on December 3, 2024, roughly two months after the drone flights.
Prosecutors argued that the scheme was deliberate. A memo found on the phone of military counterintelligence commander Yeo In-hyung, a third co-conspirator, outlined the strategy, saying, “We must create or seize instability.” Special prosecutor Cho Eun-seok argued Yoon had deliberately sought to draw North Korea into firing first, giving him a national security pretext to declare martial law and move against political opponents.
Yoon denied wrongdoing. His lawyers argued he neither ordered nor approved the drone operation, which they described as a response to months of North Korean balloon launches carrying rubbish across the border — not a pretext for martial law.
Friday’s sentence extends a mounting legal record. In February, a Seoul court sentenced Yoon to life in prison for leading an insurrection linked to the martial law declaration, ruling he had ordered troops to storm the National Assembly and attempted to arrest political opponents, including then-opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. An earlier ruling added five years for abuse of power, obstructing justice, and falsifying documents. Yoon can appeal Friday’s ruling.
Yoon’s martial law declaration lasted roughly six hours before the National Assembly voted it down. Mass protests followed. The Constitutional Court removed him from office; a snap election brought liberal President Lee Jae Myung to power — the same man Yoon had attempted to arrest.
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