South Korea court sentences former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years prison for ordering drone flights over Pyongyang in 2024
A Seoul court found Yoon guilty of abuse of power and aiding the enemy for sending drones into North Korea in October 2024, aiming to provoke a military response to justify his later martial law declaration.
The drone operation and its fallout
In October 2024, drones flew over Pyongyang three times, scattering propaganda leaflets in what North Korea denounced as a provocation. The South Korean defense minister at the time, Kim Yong Hyun, offered a vague denial, and the Defense Ministry said it could neither confirm nor deny the flights. Tensions spiked but did not lead to military clashes.
Today's verdicts
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to 30 years in prison on Friday. Former defense minister Kim Yong Hyun received the same term. The court also sentenced former Defense Counterintelligence Command head Yeo In Hyung to 15 years, and former Drone Operations Command chief Kim Yong Dae to three years in prison, suspended for five years. The judges concluded the officials had tried to create a national emergency.
The defendants used the guise of a military operation to induce provocations from North Korea with the aim of creating a state of emergency.
- Drones fly over Pyongyang three times in October 2024, dropping propaganda leaflets
- Yoon declares martial law, accusing lawmakers of being ‘anti-state’ forces
- National Assembly votes to lift martial law after six-hour standoff
- Constitutional Court upholds Yoon’s impeachment, removing him from office
- Yoon arrested and taken into custody
- Court sentences Yoon to life in prison for insurrection related to martial law
- Court sentences Yoon to 30 years for ordering the drone flights over North Korea
The martial law connection
Yoon’s short-lived martial law declaration came on the night of December 3, 2024, when he accused liberal lawmakers of being North Korea-sympathizing “anti-state” forces. But the drone operation, prosecutors argued, was a deliberate attempt to provoke Pyongyang into a retaliation that would serve as the needed crisis. Martial law lasted six hours before the National Assembly voted to lift it, forcing Yoon’s Cabinet to back down.
- Yoon Suk Yeol
- 30 years
- Kim Yong Hyun
- 30 years
- Yeo In Hyung
- 15 years
- Kim Yong Dae
- 3 years
Yoon’s defense and reaction
Yoon denied ordering or approving the drone mission, and his lawyers said it was a response to months of North Korean balloon launches carrying refuse across the border. They argued a guilty verdict would harm South Korea’s security interests. The defense did not immediately say whether it would appeal.
He neither ordered nor later approved the operation.
A cascade of legal judgments
The 30-year term adds to a growing list of sentences for the ousted president. Yoon was impeached and removed from office in 2025, then arrested in July of that year. In February 2026, the same court handed him a life sentence after convicting him of leading an insurrection tied to martial law. He previously received a five-year jail term for abuse of power and obstructing his own arrest. Special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk had sought a 30-year prison term for Yoon, and 25 years for Kim Yong Hyun, when the charges were filed in April.
