Former president convicted of general treason, abuse of authority; ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun also gets 30 years; court says operation harmed South Korea's military interests

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol. [Seoul Central District Court]
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol. [Seoul Central District Court]

A court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison Thursday over charges that he ordered drone missions into Pyongyang to manufacture a pretext for declaring emergency martial law on Dec. 3. It marked the first time in South Korean constitutional history that a former president has been convicted of general treason.

The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 36, presided over by Judge Lee Jeong-yeop, handed down the sentence Thursday. Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, tried in the same case, received 30 years. Former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In-hyeong was sentenced to 15 years. Former Drone Operations Command chief Kim Yong-dae, who directed the actual execution of the missions, received a three-year sentence suspended for five years.

The court found all defendants guilty on both the general treason charges and the abuse-of-authority charges.

"The drone infiltration operation harmed South Korea's military interests by provoking North Korea and providing it with a pretext for retaliation," the court said. It added that Yoon had planned the operation together with former Defense Minister Kim and others and was therefore a co-principal in the general treason offense.

The court also said Yoon had ordered the operation for private purposes — to engineer conditions for emergency martial law in his own political interest — and had thereby compelled soldiers to carry out duties they had no obligation to perform.

Yoon and the other defendants faced charges of sending drones into Pyongyang on multiple occasions after October 2024 to provoke a North Korean response and create a "northern wind" justification for martial law. The special prosecutor's office led by Special Prosecutor Jo Eun-seok argued that general treason was established because drones crashed near Pyongyang, leaking operational and capability secrets.

At the closed sentencing hearing held in April, the special prosecution asked the court to impose 30 years on Yoon and 25 years on Kim Yong-hyun. It requested 20 years for Yeo and five years for Kim Yong-dae.

At that hearing, prosecutors described the conduct as "an anti-state, anti-people crime" in which the commander in chief, the defense minister and the counterintelligence chief — officials entrusted with the lives and safety of the Korean people — sought to manufacture wartime conditions on the peninsula in order to eliminate political opponents, monopolize power and sustain their hold on it through emergency martial law.

Yoon's defense denied the charges, arguing he had neither ordered nor approved the operations in question and that linking them to the martial law declaration was a false claim. The court rejected those arguments Thursday and found all charges proven.

In explaining the sentence, the court said crimes against the state involve endangering the nation from without, and that Yoon had exploited soldiers for private ends to provoke North Korea as part of a scheme to create emergency martial law conditions.

The court added that the conduct "betrayed the public's trust in the lawful use of military force" and had "gravely undermined the legitimacy of and confidence in military orders, with lasting adverse effects on the chain of command and the swift execution of operations" — factors that made it impossible to treat the offenses lightly.


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