The South Korean special prosecutor’s office this Monday expanded the accusations against the former president Yoon Suk Yeolto whom he attributes the sending of military drones to the center of Pyongyang to tense the situation with the regime of Kim Yong Un and pave the way for the declaration of martial law last December.
Investigators affirm that the operation included several clandestine flights between October and November 2024. These devices, which would have dropped leaflets against the regime, motivated an unusual statement from the North Korean leader. Kim Yo Jongwhich denounced incursions into its country’s airspace and warned of “serious consequences.”
The Northern authorities then released photographs of crashed drones near the capital. Analysts identified one of them as similar to a model used by the South Korean Armed Forces. Pyongyang even dynamited two internal roads as a gesture of rupture, although it avoided any military action.
The flights fit, according to the accusation, into a plan devised by Kim Yong-hyunthen Minister of Defense, and by the former counterintelligence commander Yeo In-hyung. Notes were found on the latter’s phone that, according to the prosecution, describe objectives to cause “instability” and place the North in a situation of “loss of prestige”, including the capital, nuclear facilities and residences of the North Korean leader.
One of the entries, dated October 23, sets the goal of generating a “national security crisis” and, in the extreme, a scenario compared to a “flood,” in reference to the biblical story. Another, from November 5, maintains that a reaction from the enemy had to occur “first” and that it was necessary to “wait for the decisive moment.”
In a media appearance, the spokesperson for the special prosecutor’s office, Park Ji-youngmaintained that the accused acted “to create an environment conducive to the declaration of martial law,” as reported by CNN, and that they put the country’s security at risk by increasing the options of an armed clash with the North.
The former president rejects the accusations and maintains that he did not order drone raids or try to use the tension with Pyongyang to justify exceptional measures. Your lawyer, Yoo Jeong-hwadescribed the accusation as a “unilateral prosecution” that “does not respect the most basic logical principles.” The three are already being tried for insurrection following the failed imposition of martial law.
That December 3, in a televised message at dawn, Yoon assured that there were “anti-national forces” in the opposition and activated a decree that mobilized troops towards Parliament. Soldiers descended in helicopters and tried to access the chamber, although they were repelled by officials, deputies and citizens who came to the building after the first images were released.
The Assembly annulled the order hours later and the episode triggered massive protests, judicial appeals and, finally, the dismissal and arrest of the conservative leader. After the June elections, the new Government promoted the appointment of a special prosecutor to delve deeper into the plot linked to martial law.
Several commanders of the drone unit have stated that they received orders to fly over Pyongyang without knowing its relationship with the former president’s plans. The prosecution maintains that there is no indication that these officers participated in the alleged strategy to induce a military clash.
Regional security experts have warned of the possible international implications of the case. One of them, cited by CNN, emphasizes that using drones to pressure the North would represent “a dangerous interaction between domestic politics and security management,” and recalls that these incursions would violate the armistice that has been in force on the peninsula since 1953.