South Korea ex-president gets 30 years in jail over North drone incursion
A South Korean court handed former president Yoon Suk Yeol a 30-year prison sentence on Friday for sending drones into North Korea to "manufacture" a crisis ahead of his disastrous martial law bid.
The military drone flights two months before Yoon suspended civilian rule in 2024 had sparked anger in Pyongyang, which accused the South of also dropping propaganda leaflets.
Yoon is already in detention while he appeals a separate life sentence for leading an insurrection with his martial law declaration.
Judges said Friday the ex-president intended to provoke Pyongyang "into carrying out armed or equivalent acts against South Korea's military or people", according to a summary of their ruling seen by AFP.
Yoon planned to "heighten inter-Korean military tensions and manufacture a national crisis" that could then justify martial law, the judges added, convicting him on charges of benefiting the enemy.
He was given 30 years in jail over the drone incursion, a spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court told AFP Friday.
Yoon's legal team said he appealed the sentence, arguing that the drone operation was in response to North Korea sending balloons carrying trash across the border that year.
Regarding "our military's operations in response to North Korea's persistent provocations as acts aiding the enemy" amounts to "disregarding the state's fundamental duty to safeguard its liberal democratic system", Yoon's lawyers said in a statement.
The former president has insisted his martial law declaration was "solely for the sake of the nation".
The shock late-night national televised address in December 2024 that suspended civilian rule plunged South Korea into an unprecedented political crisis.
Martial law lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session.
However, it triggered protests, sent the stock market plunging and caught key allies like the United States off-guard.
- 'Political gain' -
The judges said in their decision on Friday that the 2024 drone operation "entailed the use of South Korea's military capabilities for private purposes".
They added that powers vested in the president, including supreme command of the armed forces and the authority to declare martial law, must be exercised to protect the nation's survival and security.
But Yoon approved the military drone operation, "believing he could arbitrarily use such powers for his own political gain," the judges said.
Yoon is facing multiple legal cases over the martial law declaration, and Lee Jae Myung was elected president after months of political chaos in the country.
Drone flights remain a flashpoint in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.
In an incident unrelated to Yoon's drone case, South Korean investigators found that government officials had sent drones into the nuclear-armed North in January.
President Lee expressed regret earlier this year over the incident.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister called Lee's statement "wise behaviour", but hopes for a rapprochement faded after the diplomatically isolated nation returned to calling the South its "most hostile" enemy.
W.Maile--HStB
