The Democratic Party on April 24 called prosecutors’ request for a 30-year prison term for Yoon Suk Yeol, indicted over allegations he ordered a drone operation into Pyongyang, “a deserved response to an anti-state crime.” Some party figures said prosecutors should have sought life in prison.
Spokesman Kim Nam-guk said Yoon “used the nation’s survival and the lives of its people as chips in a gamble to maintain his power.” Earlier, the special counsel team asked the Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 36, presided over Chief Judge Lee Jeong-yeop, to sentence Yoon to 30 years at the closing hearing in the first trial.
Kim said it would be recorded as “an indelible disgrace” that the commander in chief, who should protect lives, “artificially stoked the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula” and tried to undermine the constitutional order.
He said the alleged “Pyongyang drone insertion” operation went beyond abuse of power and amounted to “aiding the enemy,” calling the offense serious. Kim said the operation was aimed at stirring a “North wind” to justify declaring martial law, sending a key military asset into enemy territory and, in the process, giving North Korea grounds for retaliation that put border residents and the public under the threat of war.
“Now only the judiciary’s stern judgment remains,” Kim said, urging a ruling “based solely on law and principle” so that “power does not again threaten the people by taking security hostage.”
Rep. Kim Byung-joo, a former four-star general, wrote on Facebook that the request was too light and that seeking life in prison “would not have been excessive.” Rep. Kim Yong-min also said prosecutors should have sought the maximum penalty of life in prison, saying history should record the fate of someone who “schemed for war” to keep power.
Yoon is accused of ordering an operation around October 2024 to send drones into Pyongyang to militarily provoke North Korea with the aim of declaring martial law. The special counsel has concluded the operation heightened military tensions between the Koreas and that a deployed drone crashed, leaking military secrets related to the operation and capabilities and harming military interests.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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