SOUTH KOREA’S ousted right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol plotted for over a year to impose martial law to eliminate his political rivals and monopolise power, investigators concluded today.

Mr Yoon’s martial law decree in December 2024 lasted only several hours and resulted in his rapid downfall.

Independent counsel Cho Eun-suk, who announced the six-month probe’s result, also accused the former president and his military allies of ordering operations against North Korea, in a deliberate bid to stoke tensions and justify his plans to declare martial law.

Despite the lack of a serious response from North Korea, Mr Cho said that Mr Yoon declared martial law by branding the liberal-controlled legislature as “anti-state forces” that must be urgently removed.

There was no immediate reaction from Mr Yoon, who is in jail while standing trial on rebellion charges. 

Mr Cho said Mr Yoon and his military associates had schemed to enforce martial law since before October 2023.

He said Mr Yoon, his defence minister Kim Yong Hyun and Yeo In-hyung, then commander of the military’s counterintelligence agency, orchestrated various military operations against North Korea from October 2024. 

Mr Yoon is also accused of ordering drone flights over the North, which the former president has argued he hadn’t been informed of.