Trending 
South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol has been 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.
The Seoul Central District Court handed down the sentence, a spokesperson told AFP, without giving further details.
Yoon was given life in jail in February for leading an insurrection to “paralyse” the National Assembly with his martial law declaration.
Special prosecutors said in April that Yoon’s effort to “fabricate wartime conditions” with the drones had undermined state security.
Prosecutors 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, Yonhap news agency reported.
Yoon has appealed against the insurrection conviction, insisting that he declared martial law “solely for the sake of the nation”.
His legal team denied the charge involving the drones, saying there was “no prior order or subsequent approval” by him for the drone operation cited by prosecutors.
They said the operation was a response to North Korea sending balloons carrying trash across the border that year and was “a legitimate act of self-defence” unrelated to Yoon’s martial law declaration.
His lawyers dismissed the prosecution’s claims as a “speculative and false novel”.
Drone flights remain a flashpoint in tensions between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war.
Earlier this year, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung apologised for sending drones into the nuclear-armed North in January, according to an investigation.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un referred to Lee’s statement as “wise behaviour,” but after the diplomatically isolated country resumed referring to the South as its “most hostile” enemy, hopes for reconciliation faded.
