Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Sentenced to 30 Years for North Korea’s Alleged Drone Operation | Today’s news

Ousted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his former defense minister were sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison for ordering drone flights over Pyongyang in 2024 to raise tensions with North Korea and justify martial law at home.

The full version of the Seoul Central District Court’s ruling was not immediately available. The same court previously sentenced Yoon to life in prison for a mutiny conviction due to his short-lived declaration of martial law in December 2024.

North Korea has accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets three times in October 2024. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun at the time vaguely denied this, before the Ministry of Defense said it could neither confirm nor deny the allegations. Tensions rose sharply but did not lead to any military clashes.

Yoon’s lawyers criticized the latest verdict, saying the drone flights were a response to North Korea flying thousands of balloons carrying garbage to the South earlier in 2024. They argued that a guilty verdict would undermine South Korea’s security interests, but did not immediately say whether they would appeal.

Investigators led by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-suk sought a 30-year prison sentence for Yoon, accusing him of trying to create a state of war between the Koreas while plotting an authoritarian push to eliminate his political opponents and “monopolize” power. They sought 25 years in prison for Kim Yong Hyun, a key Yoon confidant who helped plan and mobilize forces for Yoon’s declaration of martial law.

Yoon continued the statement late on the night of December 3, 2024, giving a televised speech in which he accused liberal lawmakers of being “anti-state” forces sympathetic to North Korea. He cited a number of complaints as the reason, but in particular the dismissal of senior opposition officials and cuts in the government’s budget bill.

Martial law lasted for about six hours until lawmakers broke through a blockade of soldiers and police in the National Assembly and voted to lift it, forcing Yoon’s cabinet to rescind the measure.

Yoon was quickly suspended from office, indicted and formally impeached by the Constitutional Court. He was arrested in July 2025 and several criminal proceedings are pending.

Both Yoon and prosecutors, who sought the death penalty, appealed the verdict in the most serious mutiny case.