{"id":15807,"date":"2026-04-24T11:01:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=15807"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:01:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:16:54","slug":"south-korean-special-counsel-seeks-30-year-sentence-for-ex-president-yoon-over-drone-infiltration-into-dprk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=15807","title":{"rendered":"<strong>South Korean Special Counsel Seeks 30-Year Sentence for Ex-President Yoon Over Drone Infiltration into DPRK<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kathmandu &#8211; South Korea&#8217;s special counsel on Friday sought a 30-year prison sentence for former President Yoon Suk-yeol over general treason linked to the infiltration of a drone into the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea (DPRK).<\/p>\n<p>The team of Cho Eun-suk, an independent counsel who led investigations into Yoon&#8217;s insurrection and other charges, demanded the prison term on charges of general treason, which refers to the crime of harming South Korea&#8217;s military interests or benefiting the enemy.<\/p>\n<p>Yoon was accused of ordering the drone infiltration into Pyongyang around October 2024 with the intent of militarily provoking the DPRK in a bid to create a pretext for his martial law declaration in December of the same year.<\/p>\n<p>The special prosecutor team believed that the drone operation heightened military tensions between the two Koreas and compromised South Korea&#8217;s military interests as the drone crash led to the leak of classified information about military operations and assets.<\/p>\n<p>The team requested a 25-year prison sentence for former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun.<\/p>\n<p>Yoon and Kim were indicted on charges of general treason in November 2025 along with a former counterintelligence commander.<\/p>\n<p>The emergency martial law was declared by Yoon on the night of Dec. 3, 2024, but it was revoked hours later by the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>He was indicted under detention in January 2025 as a suspected ringleader of the insurrection, becoming the first sitting president to be arrested and indicted.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=15807\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"time\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 100% !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kathmandu &#8211; South Korea&#8217;s special counsel on Friday sought a 30-year prison sentence for former President Yoon Suk-yeol over general treason linked to the infiltration of a drone into the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The team of Cho Eun-suk, an independent counsel who led investigations into Yoon&#8217;s insurrection and other charges, demanded the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164,160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>South Korean Special Counsel Seeks 30-Year Sentence for Ex-President Yoon Over Drone Infiltration into DPRK - Dragon Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=15807\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South Korean Special Counsel Seeks 30-Year Sentence for Ex-President Yoon Over Drone Infiltration into DPRK - Dragon Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kathmandu &#8211; South Korea&#8217;s special counsel on Friday sought a 30-year prison sentence for former President Yoon Suk-yeol over general treason linked to the infiltration of a drone into the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea (DPRK). 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