South Korea’s ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday, June 13, 2026, alongside his former defense minister — both convicted in a case tied to alleged drone flights over Pyongyang that prosecutors say Yoon ordered to manufacture a pretext for declaring martial law at home.
The sentences came down in a Seoul court. Thirty years each. No suspended terms, no reduced charges reported in the ruling.
The allegations
Prosecutors alleged that Yoon directed the drone flights over North Korea’s capital in 2024 specifically to escalate tensions on the peninsula, then use that manufactured threat to justify invoking martial law inside South Korea. His former defense minister — whose name wasn’t included in the source reporting — faced the same charge and drew the same sentence.
Martial law declarations in South Korea carry enormous political weight; the country’s modern history is scarred by military-backed governments that used emergency powers to silence opposition. Yoon’s government had already collapsed before Friday’s verdict, but the case against him went beyond the martial law declaration itself — it traced back to how that crisis was allegedly set in motion.
Yoon had been removed from office before the sentencing. Whether his legal team plans to appeal the 30-year term wasn’t immediately clear from Friday’s court proceedings, and no statement from his defense had been reported by the time of publication.
Originally reported by NPR. Read the original report.
