South Korea's ousted president Yoon plotted martial law to eliminate rivals, probe finds

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol plotted for over a year to impose martial law to eliminate his political rivals and monopolize power, investigators concluded Monday.

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, Cho said that 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 Yoon, who is in jail while standing trials for high-stakes rebellion charges. Yoon has steadfastly maintained that his martial law declaration was a desperate attempt to draw public support for his fight against the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, which obstructed his agenda while holding a majority in the legislature.

Meanwhile, police raided the headquarters of the Unification Church on Monday as they probe separate bribery allegations against more politicians. An independent investigation involving Yoon’s wife and the church has been underway for several months.

Cho said Yoon and his military associates had schemed to enforce martial law since before October 2023 and that they reshuffled top military officials to place their associates in key posts while removing a defense minister who opposed their plan. Cho said they hosted dinner parties to give their martial law plan traction among military leaders.

Cho said Yoon, his Defense 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. Cho’s deputy earlier accused Yoon of ordering drone flights over the North, which Yoon has argued he hadn’t been informed of.

The lead investigator said North Korea didn’t retaliate, likely because it was preoccupied with its support of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and so Yoon lacked legal grounds to impose military rule, but went ahead anyway to swiftly “eradicate anti-state forces.”

“Yoon Suk Yeol ... tried to declare martial law by inciting military provocations by North Korea, but that plan failed,” Cho said. “Yoon declared emergency martial law to monopolize and maintain power by taking control of the legislative and judiciary branches and eliminating his political opponents.”

In a case that showed the seriousness of Yoon’s hostilities against his opponents, Cho said Yoon called his governing People Power Party’s main rival Han Dong-hun “a commie” and said “I’ll shoot him to death” in meetings with military generals.

Han was at odds with Yoon over scandals involving the former president’s wife. Park Ji-young, a senior investigator on Cho’s team, downplayed suspicions that his wife’s troubles drove Yoon to declare martial law, saying the move was primarily about grabbing power.

Hundreds of troops encircled the parliament building and entered the election commission offices after Yoon declared martial law on Dec. 3, 2024. Thousands of people flocked to the National Assembly at the time, protesting the decree and demanding Yoon step down. Lawmakers made it inside the building and voted down Yoon’s order within hours. Lawmakers later in December voted to impeach Yoon, suspending his powers and putting his fate with the Constitutional Court, which formally removed him from office in April.

Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae Myung became South Korea’s new president via a snap election in June, and he appointed three independent counsels to probe Yoon’s martial law and other allegations against him, his wife and other associates.

Cho said that Yoon and 23 other people, including his top officials, including Defense Minister Kim, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, have been indicted over Yoon’s martial law decree. Some military generals were also arrested and indicted by military prosecutors.

Park said there were signs that Yoon and his allies feared potential interference from Washington and may have timed their martial law attempt after the U.S. presidential election in November to exploit the distraction created by the transition to a new president.

Yoon's wife, Kim Keon Hee, was separately arrested and indicted over charges unrelated to her husband's martial law, including one that she received bribes through an intermediary from a Unification Church official seeking business favors.

Police said they raided several Unification Church -related facilities, including its headquarters in Seoul and its sprawling complex in nearby Gapyeong, following allegations that the religious group offered money and gifts to a wider range of politicians than previously thought, including Democratic Party members. Officers also searched a detention center where the church's 82-year-old leader, Hak Ja Han, has been held since September.

Police also searched the home and office of Chun Jae-soo, Lee’s former minister of oceans and fisheries, and the homes of former Democratic Party lawmaker Lim Jong-seong and Kim Gyu-hwan, a lawmaker with a PPP predecessor, over suspicions that they received bribes from the church.

Chun denied allegations that he received bribes from the church but stepped down as minister last week, saying he did not want to burden Lee’s administration. Lee, during a meeting last week, called for a thorough investigation into allegations of murky ties between politicians and a religious group, without citing the Unification Church by name.

South Korean independent counsel Cho Eun-seok speaks as he announces the results of its investigation into insurrection charges related to former President Yoon Suk Yeol at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office in Seoul Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

South Korean independent counsel Cho Eun-seok speaks as he announces the results of its investigation into insurrection charges related to former President Yoon Suk Yeol at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office in Seoul Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

South Korean independent counsel Cho Eun-seok speaks as he announces the results of its investigation into insurrection charges related to former President Yoon Suk Yeol at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office in Seoul Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

A TV screen shows a file image of South Korea's ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.

After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of the key European interlocutors between U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy, was spotted Monday morning in downtown Berlin.

Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

The U.S. government late Sunday said in a social media post on Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”

Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.

Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.

The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.

In London, meanwhile, the new head of the MI6 spy agency is set to warn on Monday of how Putin’s determination to export chaos around the world is rewriting the rules of conflict and creating new security challenges.

Blaise Metreweli will use her first public speech as chief of the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service to say that Britain faces increasingly unpredictable and interconnected threats, with emphasis on “aggressive, expansionist” Russia.

Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. The air force said early Monday that 133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.

In Russia, the defense ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were then destroyed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time Monday.

Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the Russian defense ministry said.

Flights were temporarily halted at the city’s Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports as part of safety measures, officials said.

Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

“Pax Americana” refers to the U.S.’s postwar dominance as a superpower that has brought relative peace to the globe.

Merz warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.

Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”

Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.

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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland. Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, leaves through a hotel garage for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,stands in his office in the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine, at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

Jared Kushner, entrepreneur and former chief adviser to President Donald Trump, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, watches Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving at the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)