South Korea's ex-President Yoon gets 30 years over drone operation
South Korea's former President Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for sending military drones into North Korea, a move prosecutors argued was aimed at creating a pretext for his disastrous martial law declaration in 2024.
A Seoul court on Friday sentenced former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison for ordering military drone flights into North Korea. The drone operation, which Pyongyang said included dropping propaganda leaflets, triggered a sharp spike in military tensions between the two Koreas in October 2024.
Special prosecutors, who had sought a 30-year term, said in April that Yoon's effort to "fabricate wartime conditions" with the drones undermined state security. A spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court confirmed the sentence to AFP but gave no further details. Yoon has denied any wrongdoing.
The ruling adds to a series of judgments against the ousted conservative leader, once South Korea's top prosecutor. His martial law declaration in late 2024 plunged Asia's fourth-largest economy into its deepest political turmoil in decades. In February, a separate court sentenced Yoon to life in prison for leading an insurrection linked to that martial law attempt. He was removed from office last year after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment, triggering a snap election won by liberal President Lee Jae-myung.
Yoon's lawyers argued that he neither ordered nor later approved the drone operation, claiming it was unrelated to martial law and instead a response to months of North Korean balloon launches carrying rubbish across the border. Yoon, already in custody, can appeal Friday's lower court ruling.
Drone flights remain a flashpoint in inter-Korean tensions, as the two countries are technically still at war. President Lee expressed regret earlier this year after an investigation found government officials had sent drones into nuclear-armed North Korea in January. Kim Jong Un's powerful sister called Lee's statement "wise behavior," but hopes for rapprochement faded after the diplomatically isolated North again labeled South Korea its "most hostile" enemy.
