Yoon faces 30-year sentence in drone case

Special counsel Cho Eun-seok on Friday urged a court to sentence former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison on charges of aiding the enemy, alleging he ordered repeated drone flights into North Korea to help justify declaring martial law.

Prosecutors also sought a 25-year term for former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, accused of directing the so-called Pyongyang drone operation after being briefed on the plan.

At the closing session of the first trial, held at the Seoul Central District Court and presided over by Chief Judge Lee Jeong-yeop, assistant special counsel Jang Woo-sung said Yoon tried to engineer a wartime scenario on the Korean Peninsula to create grounds for imposing martial law.

“This was an anti-state, anti-people crime aimed at manufacturing conditions for a martial law declaration,” Jang said. "The alleged actions caused tangible harm to national security and undermined South Korea’s military interests."

The special counsel also requested a 20-year sentence for former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In-hyung and five years for former Drone Operations Command head Kim Yong-dae, both indicted as accomplices.

In the closed hearing, Yoon’s legal team rejected the allegations, saying a separate trial court had already determined that the decision to impose martial law was made on Dec. 1, 2024, and that linking the drone operation to that decision was unfounded. Yoon also read a 10-page statement he had prepared in detention.

Separately, an appellate court is set to deliver its ruling at 3 p.m. on April 29 in a case alleging that Yoon obstructed his arrest by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials. The hearing will be broadcast live, marking the first appellate ruling involving the former president. In an earlier decision on Jan. 16, a lower court sentenced Yoon to five years in prison on charges including obstruction of official duties.


고도예 기자 yea@donga.com