SEOUL — A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison on Friday over charges linked to sending military drones into North Korea, a move prosecutors argued was aimed at creating a pretext for his disastrous martial law declaration in December 2024, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The Seoul central district court found Yoon guilty of abuse of power and aiding the enemy, saying he had conspired in the October 2024 drone incursion from the outset, Yonhap said. Special prosecutors said back in April that Yoon’s effort to “fabricate wartime conditions” with the drones had undermined state security.
Yoon denied wrongdoing. His lawyers said he neither ordered nor later approved the operation, which they said was unrelated to martial law and instead a response to months of North Korean launches across the border of balloons stuffed with rubbish.
The drone flights, which Pyongyang said included the dropping of propaganda leaflets, triggered a spike in military tensions between the two nations in October 2024.
Prosecutors also argued that the operation led to the leak of classified information — including details about force capabilities — after the drones crashed, Yonhap reported.
Friday’s sentence comes after Yoon was given life in jail in February for leading an insurrection to “paralyze” South Korea’s National Assembly with his martial law declaration.
Yoon has appealed against the insurrection conviction, insisting that he declared martial law “solely for the sake of the nation.”
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.
Yoon was removed from office last year after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment, triggering a snap election that was won by liberal President Lee Jae Myung.
Yoon, who is already in custody, can appeal Friday’s lower court ruling.
Drone flights remain a flashpoint in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.
Lee expressed regret earlier this year after an investigation found government officials had sent drones into the nuclear-armed North Korea in January.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister called Lee’s statement “wise behavior”, but hopes for a rapprochement faded after the diplomatically isolated nation returned to calling South Korea its “most hostile” enemy.
Source: Saudi Gazette