SEOUL — A special prosecution team investigating the December 3rd state of emergency has reportedly uncovered evidence suggesting that former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun bypassed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to independently order military responses to provocations from North Korea. The allegations, which include directing a retaliatory strike on North Korea and deploying a drone into Pyongyang, point to a serious breach of the military's command structure. Such actions, if proven, would represent a significant violation of military protocol, which dictates that the JCS Chairman is the highest authority for commanding and supervising military operations.
According to legal sources, the special prosecution team has obtained testimony from senior JCS officials detailing Kim's alleged directives. On November 18 of the previous year, Kim reportedly instructed Lee Seung-oh, the JCS Chief of Operations, to "report to me that a retaliatory strike is necessary based on the situation assessment" if another North Korean "trash balloon" incident occurred. He then allegedly ordered Lee not to report this instruction to JCS Chairman Kim Myung-soo. The plan, as described, involved Lee making the recommendation directly to the former minister, who would then use it as a pretext to order Ground Operations Commander Kang Ho-pil to execute the strike.
JCS Chief of Operations Lee Seung-oh reportedly pushed back against the plan, pointing out that any such strike would require approval from the National Security Advisor and the President, in addition to notification to the United Nations Command (UNC). Kim Yong-hyun is said to have reacted angrily to Lee's opposition. Lee then reported the incident to Chairman Kim Myung-soo. The two officers reportedly devised a plan to resist any such orders from the former minister, agreeing to sever video conference links and move to a different room to notify the National Security Office if they were ever directly ordered to conduct a strike. Chairman Kim Myung-soo also directly confronted the former defense minister on November 22, expressing his opposition to a preemptive strike, but Kim Yong-hyun reportedly remained unyielding.
Further evidence suggests that Kim Yong-hyun continued to pressure the JCS. Just four days before the declaration of the state of emergency, on November 29, he allegedly ordered Lee Seung-oh to revise protocols to streamline the process for a retaliatory strike, making it easier to execute his direct orders. However, the JCS instead complicated the procedure, requiring joint discussions and approvals from the Ministry of National Defense, the JCS, and operational commanders, followed by notification to the UNC. This revised protocol was reported to Kim Yong-hyun on November 30. The state of emergency was declared three days later, but the JCS was reportedly excluded from the process.
The special prosecution team has also uncovered similar patterns of bypassing the chain of command in the operation to deploy a drone into Pyongyang. The team reportedly secured records of over 30 encrypted phone calls between Kim Yong-hyun and the commander of the Army Drone Operations Command, Kim Yong-dae, between late September and late November of the previous year. Notably, calls were made on October 9, the day the drone reportedly crashed in Pyongyang, and on October 12, the day after North Korea announced it had found the crashed South Korean drone. The special prosecution suspects that Kim Yong-hyun directly ordered the operation, circumventing the standard chain of command: JCS Chairman → JCS Chief of Operations → Drone Operations Commander.
Investigators believe that Kim Yong-hyun, a former Army officer, intentionally excluded the JCS Chairman, a Navy officer, from the decision-making process. By issuing direct orders to his Army juniors, Lee Seung-oh and Kim Yong-dae, he may have intended to provoke a military response from North Korea, creating a pretext to declare a state of emergency. The special prosecution team has reportedly accelerated its investigation, including a move to change Lee Seung-oh's status to that of a suspect.
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