Graduate student gets suspended sentence for flying drones into North Korea
A Seoul court convicted three civilians of aviation law violations over unauthorized drone flights into the Kaesong area, including the graduate student who piloted them, while acquitting them of aiding-the-enemy charges.
A drone that North Korea said crashed in a rice paddy in Sasi-ri, Jangphung County, Kaesong, after being hit by an attack from the Korean People's Army's on Sept. 27, 2025, is shown in this photo distributed by the Rodong Sinmun.NEWS1
A graduate student who piloted drones into North Korea was handed a suspended prison sentence Wednesday.
The Seoul Central District Court sentenced the graduate student, identified only by the surname Oh, to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, on charges violating the Aviation Safety Act.
Oh was indicted on charges of flying civilian drones across the military demarcation line into the Kaesong area of North Korea without authorization on four occasions between Sept. 27 last year and Jan. 4 this year. Prosecutors said the drones evaded military air defenses and recorded footage during the flights.
Oh allegedly carried out the flights with an individual surnamed Jang, the head of drone manufacturer Estelle Engineering, and another individual surnamed Kim, the company's director specializing in North Korean affairs.
Prosecutors detained and indicted Oh, who personally piloted the drones into North Korea, after considering the extent of each person's involvement.
Jang and Kim were indicted without detention. The two were sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years.
The court found the three defendants guilty of violating the Aviation Safety Act but acquitted them of the general aiding-the-enemy charge.
Two of the drones used in the four flights, one on Sept. 27, 2025 and the other on Jan. 4 this year, failed to return and crashed in North Korea, according to prosecutors. North Korea recovered the aircraft and their SD cards and analyzed the data before issuing a statement on Jan. 10 based on their flight histories, including latitude, longitude and altitude data, as well as video footage.
A warning sign in Paju’s border area reads that drone flights and photography are prohibited in a photo taken on Jan. 11.YONHAP
"On Jan. 4, the Korean People's Army sub-units on duty for border air surveillance detected and tracked an air target moving northward in the sky over the area of Hado-ri, Songhae-myon, Kanghwa County of Inchon City," a spokesperson for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said on Jan. 10.
The spokesperson added that the "relevant video data are a clear proof that the drone violated the territorial air of the DPRK for surveillance and reconnaissance of its area."
President Lee Jae Myung ordered the military and police that same day to form a joint investigation team and conduct a thorough investigation.
A joint military-police task force was subsequently established on Jan. 12, headed by the director-general of the National Office of Investigation's Security Investigation Bureau. The task force consisted of around 30 personnel, including more than 20 police officers and more than 10 military personnel. The task force referred the three civilian suspects to prosecutors on Sept. 6 on charges of general aiding the enemy and violations of the Aviation Safety Act and the Protection of Military Bases and Installations Act.
After receiving the case in March, prosecutors conducted a supplementary investigation, directly hearing the defendants' accounts and statements from people involved in the case and cross-checking them against evidence collected by the task force.
A graduate student surnamed Oh, accused of sending drones into North Korea, enters the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Thursday for an arrest warrant hearing on Feb. 26.YONHAP
Prosecutors, however, dropped the alleged violation of the Protection of Military Bases and Installations Act for lack of evidence after finding no objective evidence proving that the defendants had filmed South Korean military bases or other protected facilities.
At the final hearing on Sept. 2, the task force sought a five-year prison term for Oh, arguing that the defendants' actions had heightened tensions between the two Koreas and put the public at risk. Prosecutors sought three-year prison terms for Jang and Kim.
Oh's defense maintained from the first to the final hearing that Oh had neither harmed South Korea's military interests nor intended to commit the offense of general aiding the enemy and argued for an acquittal.
Oh applied for bail in July, but the court rejected the request, citing concerns that Oh could destroy evidence or flee.
Separately, Oh and the two other defendants have been indicted on charges of launching and flying the drones without notifying the minister of land, infrastructure and transport in violation of the Aviation Safety Act.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
