South Korea indicts ex-president Yoon for aiding enemy

SEOUL,

South Korean prosecutors have formally indicted former president Yoon Suk Yeol on charges of aiding the enemy, alleging that he ordered drone flights over North Korea to support an attempt to declare martial law.

State prosecutors launched a special investigation earlier this year to determine whether the drone missions were an illegal attempt to provoke North Korea and use its response as justification for imposing military rule. North Korea claimed last year that South Korean drones had dropped propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang, though Seoul’s military has not confirmed the claim.

Prosecutor Park Ji-young told reporters on Monday that the special counsel team had filed charges of “benefiting the enemy in general” and “abuse of power” against Yoon. She said that Yoon and his associates “conspired to create conditions that would allow the declaration of emergency martial law, thereby increasing the risk of inter-Korean armed confrontation and harming public military interests.”

Compelling evidence was found in a memo written by Yoon’s former counter-intelligence commander in October last year, which urged the military to “create an unstable situation or seize an arising opportunity.” The memo specifically suggested targeting locations “that must make them (the North) lose face so that a response is inevitable,” including Pyongyang and the major coastal city of Wonsan.

Seoul and Pyongyang remain technically at war, as the 1950–53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Yoon triggered a political crisis in December last year when he attempted to subvert civilian rule by sending armed soldiers to parliament to prevent lawmakers from voting down his martial law declaration. The effort failed, and he was detained in a dawn raid in January, becoming South Korea’s first sitting president taken into custody.

He was removed from office in April, and Lee Jae Myung was elected in June. Yoon is still facing trial for insurrection and other offences linked to his attempted declaration of martial law.