South Korea’s jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol received an additional 30-year prison sentence on Friday. The Seoul Central District Court convicted him for ordering military drone flights over North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang. Prosecutors argued the operation was designed to provoke a military response from the North and manufacture a pretext for his failed martial law declaration in December 2024.
The court ruling
The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon and his former defense minister, Kim Yong Hyun, guilty of aiding an adversary and abusing their power. The court said they sought to provoke North Korea into launching armed attacks or other serious provocations against South Korea to manufacture a national emergency.
The court stated in its ruling that Yoon conspired in the drone operation from the beginning and was a co-principal offender in the crime of benefiting the enemy. It further held that the drone incursions into Pyongyang harmed South Korea’s military interests and were carried out for private political purposes unrelated to national security or defense.
The court said the defendants used the guise of a military operation to induce provocations from North Korea with the aim of creating a state of emergency. It concluded that Yoon bore the greatest responsibility in this event.
Also Read: ‘Absolutely non-negotiable’: Kim Jong Un’s sister draws a red line on North Korea’s nuclear programme as Xi Jinping arrives
Sentences for co-accused
Yoon and his former defense minister Kim Yong Hyun were both sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Former head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command Yeo In-hyung received 15 years. Former head of Drone Operations Command Kim Yong-dae received three years in prison with a five-year suspended sentence.
What the drone operation involved
North Korea accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets three times in October 2024.
The drone flights into the airspace over Chung-guyok district in Pyongyang occurred between October 3 and October 10. The incident led to destruction of the Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line railways in North Korea further worsening inter-Korean relations.
Investigators found internal memos suggesting that defendants were working to engineer military standoff. One memo contained notes listing targets that North Korea would respond to. That included capital Pyongyang, residence of leader Kim Jong Un and two nuclear facilities.
Prosecutors argued that the operation exposed sensitive military capabilities and operational information to North Korea after some drones reportedly crashed near Pyongyang.
South Korea’s defense minister at the time, Kim Yong Hyun, issued a vague denial when the allegations surfaced. The Defense Ministry later said it could neither confirm nor deny the claims. Tensions rose sharply but did not lead to any military clashes.
Link to the martial law bid
Prosecutors argued that Yoon ordered the drone operation in October 2024 to provoke Pyongyang and create a pretext for his failed martial law bid later that year. When Yoon declared martial law on December 3, 2024, he claimed he was protecting the country from anti-state forces that sympathised with North Korea.
Special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk had sought a 30-year prison term for Yoon, accusing him of trying to create a warlike situation between the Koreas while plotting an authoritarian push to remove his political opponents and monopolize power.
It soon became clear that Yoon was driven by domestic political troubles. He rolled back the martial law order in the face of mass protests.
Yoon’s defence
Yoon denied wrongdoing. His lawyers said he neither ordered nor later approved the drone operation. They argued the flights were unrelated to martial law and were instead a response to months of North Korean launches of balloons stuffed with rubbish across the border.
His lawyers also argued that a guilty verdict would undermine South Korea’s security interests. They did not immediately say whether they would appeal.
Yoon’s prior convictions
Friday’s sentencing is not Yoon’s first conviction. He has accumulated multiple prison terms across separate cases since his removal from office.
In February, a South Korean court sentenced Yoon to life in prison after finding him guilty of leading an insurrection linked to the martial law attempt.
In a separate case, Yoon was sentenced to five years in prison for obstruction of justice. The Seoul Central District Court found that he, with the help of the presidential security service, had tried to prevent his own arrest and deleted multiple documents related to the investigation against him.
Yoon, who is already in custody, can appeal Friday’s lower court ruling.
Political fallout and current government
The ruling adds to a series of judgements against the ousted conservative leader, once South Korea’s top prosecutor, whose martial law order plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into its deepest political turmoil in decades.
He was removed from office after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment. This triggered a snap election that was won by liberal President Lee Jae Myung.
Since taking office, Lee has taken steps to ease inter-Korean tensions. These include turning off frontline loudspeakers that blared K-pop and world news, and banning activists from flying balloons carrying propaganda leaflets toward North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister called Lee’s overtures wise behaviour. However, hopes for a diplomatic thaw faded after the North returned to calling South Korea its most hostile enemy.
Broader context
Drone flights remain a flashpoint in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.
There have been no public talks between the two Koreas since 2019. North Korea has also accused South Korea of occasional drone flights over the border in the past decade. In December 2022, South Korea fired warning shots, scrambled fighter jets, and flew surveillance drones over North Korea in response to what it called North Korea’s first alleged drone flights across the border in five years.