SEOUL — A South Korean court on Friday sentenced disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison, ruling that he orchestrated a clandestine military drone operation over Pyongyang to intentionally stoke a war crisis and engineer a pretext for his failed December 2024 martial law declaration.
The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon guilty of general treason—specifically aiding the enemy and harming national military interests—as well as abuse of power. The landmark ruling matches the 30-year term requested in April by independent special counsel Cho Eun-suk.
In a scathing decision, the court’s Criminal Division 36 rejected claims that the flights were a routine defense measure. Instead, judges ruled that Yoon and his top security officials deployed psychological warfare tactics to intentionally provoke North Korea into an armed response, sacrificing state security for “private purposes” to consolidate executive power.
The court noted that as early as March 2023, Yoon had begun discussing emergency powers with close aides, indicating a long-brewing intent to establish military rule.
Co-Conspirators Dealt Heavy Sentences
The legal fallout extended deep into Yoon’s former administration. The court dealt an unexpectedly harsh 30-year sentence to former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun—surpassing the 25 years prosecutors had originally sought. Judges noted that Kim aggressively pushed the drone operations forward, even during periods when North Korea had paused its border provocations, and overrode explicit objections from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Additionally, Yeo In-hyung, the former chief of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Kim Yong-dae, the former head of the Drone Operations Command, received a three-year sentence, which was suspended for five years, for bypassing mandatory military procedures.
”The defendants betrayed the public’s trust that the nation’s military force would only be used for lawful, constitutional purposes,” the court stated. It added that the operation severely compromised South Korea’s defense by exposing classified military secrets and asset capabilities to Pyongyang after the drones crashed.
Defense Blames Trash Balloons, Launches Appeal
Yoon, 65, who remains in custody, has fiercely denied wrongdoing. His legal team filed an appeal within hours of Friday’s verdict, slamming the prosecution’s case as a “speculative and false novel.”
Yoon’s lawyers maintained that the ousted leader neither ordered nor approved the operation. They argued the drone flights were a legitimate, defensive response to months of highly disruptive North Korean launches of balloons carrying trash across the border.
A Rapid and Historic Fall from Grace
Friday’s verdict marks the latest chapter in a spectacular downfall for the conservative leader, who was once South Korea’s top prosecutor before winning the presidency in 2022.
His late-night televised address on December 3, 2024—in which he alleged infiltration by “anti-state forces” to suspend civilian rule—plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into its worst constitutional crisis in modern history. The order lasted a chaotic six hours before the National Assembly successfully defied military blockades to vote it down.
Yoon was subsequently impeached, removed from office by the Constitutional Court, and arrested in early 2025—becoming the first sitting South Korean president to be indicted under detention.
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The 30-year sentence will run alongside a life imprisonment term handed to Yoon in February 2026 after a separate court found him guilty of leading an insurrection during the martial law bid. Yoon is currently appealing that conviction as well, while facing a complex web of six other active trials regarding corruption and separate military misconduct allegations.
Following Yoon’s removal, a snap election propelled liberal President Lee Jae Myung into office. Lee’s administration has since faced its own cross-border friction, expressing public regret earlier this year after a separate military inquiry revealed that rogue drone flights into the nuclear-armed North had continued into January.
