South Korea prosecutors seek 30 years for Yoon over drone flights into North

South Korea's ex President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on February 13, 2025. [AFP]

South Korean special prosecutors requested a further 30-year term for jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday for allegedly sending military drones into North Korea in 2024.

Yoon is accused of ordering the incursion to help create the pretext for his failed declaration of martial law that year, which resulted in his impeachment, removal from office and life imprisonment for insurrection.

Special prosecutors said in a statement that they were seeking the new sentence on charges of aiding the enemy, adding that Yoon's effort to "fabricate wartime conditions" had undermined state security.

They 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, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Yoon was sentenced to life in jail in February for leading an insurrection to "paralyse" South Korea's National Assembly.

He has appealed against the conviction, insisting that he declared martial law "solely for the sake of the nation".

Yoon's legal team denied the new charge and said there was "no prior order or subsequent approval" by him for the drone operation cited by prosecutors.

They said the operation was in 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.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret  this month after an investigation found government officials had sent drones into the nuclear-armed North in January.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister called Lee's statement "wise behaviour", but hopes for a rapprochement faded after the diplomatically isolated nation returned to calling the South its "most hostile" enemy.

Lee has vowed to mend ties with North Korea by halting the kind of provocations carried out under his predecessor, and has suggested a rare apology could be warranted for Yoon's use of the drones.