South Korea ex-president gets 30 years over North Korea drone incident
Special prosecutors said in April that Yoon had tried to "fabricate wartime conditions" through the drone flights, arguing that the operation compromised national security.
A second heavy prison sentence has landed on former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, this time over prosecutors’ claims that he sent drones into North Korea to help manufacture the crisis atmosphere that preceded his ill-fated 2024 martial law declaration.
Special prosecutors said in April that Yoon had tried to “fabricate wartime conditions” through the drone flights, arguing that the operation compromised national security.
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The latest punishment follows an earlier life sentence imposed on Yoon for leading what the court described as an insurrection aimed at “paralyse” South Korea’s National Assembly through martial law.
Yoon was “given 30 years in jail” on the drone-related charges, a spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court told journalists, without offering additional details.
Yoon has appealed the insurrection ruling, maintaining that he declared martial law “solely for the sake of the nation”.
His legal team rejected the drone accusation, saying there was “no prior order or subsequent approval” from Yoon for the operation cited by prosecutors.
They argued the mission came after North Korea sent balloons filled with trash across the border that year and said it was “a legitimate act of self-defence” with no connection to Yoon’s martial law declaration.
His lawyers also derided the prosecution’s case as a “speculative and false novel”.
Drone incursions remain a raw and dangerous pressure point between the two Koreas, which are still technically at war.
Earlier this year, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung voiced regret after an investigation found government officials had sent drones into the nuclear-armed North in January.
Kim Jong Un’s influential sister described Lee’s remarks as “wise behaviour”, but any hopes of renewed rapprochement soon dimmed after the diplomatically isolated North resumed calling the South its “most hostile” enemy.
