South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol gets 30 year prison term over North Korea drone operation

Yoon Suk Yeol, former South Korean president has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after a court found that he ordered a covert drone operation into North Korea in an attempt to trigger a confrontation with Pyongyang and create a justification for his controversial martial law declaration.

According to the BBC, the Seoul District Court ruled on Friday that Yoon deliberately used a military operation to raise tensions with North Korea as part of a broader effort to manufacture a national security crisis.

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“The defendants used the guise of a military operation to induce provocations from North Korea with the aim of creating a state of emergency,” the court said in its ruling.

Judges said the operation significantly increased the risk of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula and concluded that Yoon carried the greatest responsibility for the incident.

The court also found former defence minister Kim Yong hyun, former Defence Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In hyung and former Drone Operations Command head Kim Yong dae guilty of treason and abuse of power. Kim received a 30 year prison sentence, Yeo was jailed for 15 years, while Kim Yong dae was handed a three year prison term suspended for five years.

Prosecutors argued that Yoon ordered the drone flights into North Korea in October 2024, expecting Pyongyang to respond aggressively. They said the move was intended to create a security emergency that would support his failed decision to impose martial law on December 3, 2024.

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At the time, Yoon claimed that martial law was necessary to protect South Korea from “anti state” forces allegedly sympathetic to North Korea. However, the declaration sparked widespread protests and political backlash, with critics accusing him of using national security fears to overcome mounting domestic challenges. He later withdrew the order under intense public pressure.

Yoon had already been impeached and previously sentenced to life imprisonment for insurrection over the failed martial law attempt. He also received an additional five year sentence for abuse of power and obstructing his own arrest.

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His legal team argued that the drone operation was a legitimate response to North Korea’s earlier provocations involving hundreds of balloons carrying waste and rubbish across the border.

Relations between the two Koreas had already deteriorated sharply in 2024 after North Korea accused the South of sending drones into Pyongyang to scatter anti regime leaflets. The North described the flights as a serious provocation that could have led to war.

Yoon’s dramatic fall from power plunged South Korea into months of political turmoil, eventually leading to a national election that brought opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae myung to power with a decisive victory.