South Korea’s ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Friday for sending drones into North Korea, a move prosecutors argued was aimed at creating a pretext for his disastrous martial law declaration in 2024.
Special prosecutors said back in April that Yoon’s effort to “fabricate wartime conditions” with the drones had undermined state security.
This sentence comes after Yoon was given life in jail in February for leading an insurrection to “paralyse” South Korea’s National Assembly with his martial law declaration.
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Yoon was “given 30 years in jail” for the charges, the Seoul Central District Court said on Friday, without giving further details.
Prosecutors had also argued that the operation heightened tensions with North Korea and led to the leak of classified information – including details about force capabilities – after the drones crashed, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The ruling adds to a series of judgments against the ousted conservative leader, once South Korea’s top prosecutor, whose martial law order plunged Asia’s fourth-largest economy into its deepest political turmoil in decades.
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