SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean prosecutors Friday requested a 30-year prison term for ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol over allegations that he deliberately tried to escalate tensions with North Korea in 2024 by ordering drone flights over Pyongyang as he sought to create justifiable conditions for martial law at home.
Yoon is charged with benefiting an adversary and abusing his powers, which are among a long list of indictments against the conservative former leader over his short-lived imposition of martial law in South Korea in December 2024.
The request came in the closing stages of a trial at the Seoul Central District Court, where a team of investigators led by special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk said that Yoon and his top defense officials were responsible for alleged drone infiltrations into North Korea, about two months before he imposed martial law, while portraying the liberals as North Korea-sympathizing, “anti-state” forces.
Yoon’s legal team said in a statement to reporters that he never ordered the alleged drone flights over North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, or retroactively approved such action, and said that prosecutors are failing to back their “speculation and delusion” with evidence.
In February, the court sentenced Yoon to life in prison after finding him guilty of the more serious rebellion charge. That verdict was appealed both by Yoon and prosecutors, who had sought a death sentence.
Cho’s team said in a statement Friday that Yoon tried to create a warlike situation between the Koreas while plotting an authoritarian push to remove his political opponents and “monopolize and extend his power.” Prosecutors are seeking a 25-year prison term for Yoon’s former defense minister, Kim Yong Hyun, a key confidant who helped plan and mobilize forces for the martial law declaration.
North Korea accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets three times in October 2024. Kim initially made a vague denial, but Seoul's Defense Ministry later switched to saying it couldn't confirm whether or not the claims were true. Tensions with North Korea rose sharply at the time.
Yoon proceeded with his late night martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024, delivering a televised address in which he criticized liberals over a range of issues, but largely over their impeachments of his top officials and cuts to his government’s budget bill.
The decree lasted about six hours until a quorum of lawmakers broke through a blockade of heavily armed soldiers and police Yoon had deployed to the National Assembly. They then voted to overturn it, forcing his Cabinet to lift the measure.
Yoon was suspended from office on Dec. 14, 2024, after being impeached by the liberal-led legislature and was formally removed by the Constitutional Court in April 2025. He was arrested in July that year and has been undergoing various criminal trials since.
Though brief, Yoon's martial law decree threw the country into a severe political crisis, paralyzing politics and high-level diplomacy and rattling financial markets. The turmoil eased only after his liberal rival, Lee Jae Myung, won an early presidential election in June.
Shortly after taking office, Lee approved legislation that launched independent investigations into Yoon's martial law stunt and other criminal allegations involving him, his wife and associates.
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