South Korean law enforcement officials on Monday requested a court warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol as they investigate whether his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3 amounted to rebellion.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the power grab that lasted only a few hours, confirmed it requested the warrant from the Seoul Western District Court. They plan to question Yoon on charges of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion.
The warrant request came after Yoon dodged several requests by the joint investigation team and public prosecutors to appear for questioning and also blocked searches of his offices.
While Yoon has the presidential privilege of immunity from criminal prosecution, such protections don’t extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.
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It’s not clear whether the court will grant the warrant or whether Yoon can be compelled to appear for questioning.
Under the country’s laws, locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it’s unlikely that Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces detention. There are also concerns about possible clashes with Yoon’s presidential security service if authorities attempt to forcibly detain him.
Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14 over his imposition of martial law, which lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil, halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets.
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Yoon’s fate now lies with the Constitutional Court, which has begun deliberations on whether to uphold the impeachment and formally remove Yoon from office or reinstate him.
The National Assembly voted last week to also impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who had assumed the role of acting president after Yoon’s powers were suspended, over his reluctance to fill three Constitutional Court vacancies ahead of the court’s review of Yoon’s case. The country’s new interim leader is Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, who is also finance minister.
To formally end Yoon’s presidency, at least six justices on the nine-member Constitutional Court must vote in favor. Three seats are currently vacant following retirements and a full bench could make conviction more likely.
Choi, who has been handling the government’s response to a plane crash on Sunday that killed 179 people, has yet to say whether he intends to appoint the Constitutional Court justices.
In a separate criminal investigation of Yoon, authorities have already arrested his defense minister, police chief and several other military commanders involved in the attempt to enforce the martial law decree, which harkened back to the days of authoritarian leaders the country hasn’t seen since the 1980s.
Yoon and his military leadership have been accused of attempting to block the National Assembly from voting to end martial law by sending hundreds of heavily armed troops to encircle the building. Lawmakers who managed to get in voted unanimously 190-0 to lift martial law, hours after Yoon declared it in a late-night television address.
Yoon has also been accused of ordering defense counterintelligence officials to detain key politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik and the ex-leader of his own conservative party, Han Dong-hun, a reformist who supported investigations into corruption allegations against first lady Kim Keon Hee.
Yoon has defended the martial law decree as a necessary act of governance, portraying it as a temporary warning against the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which he has described as an “anti-state” force obstructing his agenda with its majority in the National Assembly. Yoon has claimed he had no intention to paralyze the functioning of the assembly, saying that the troops were sent to maintain order, and also denied planning to arrest politicians.
Yoon’s claims have been denied by Kwak Jong-keun, the now-arrested commander of the Army Special Warfare Command, who testified in the National Assembly that Yoon called for troops to “quickly destroy the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside” the assembly’s main chamber where the vote occurred. Kwak said he did not carry out Yoon’s orders.
The joint investigation team has also questioned Maj. Gen. Moon Sang-ho, commander of the Defense Intelligence Command, who has also been arrested over suspicions that he sent troops to the National Election Commission in Gwacheon city after Yoon declared martial law.
Yoon has defended the troop deployment to the election commission, which happened at the same time as the military operation at the National Assembly, saying it was necessary to investigate supposed vulnerabilities in the commission’s computer systems potentially affecting the credibility of election results.
Yoon’s failure to offer any evidence in support of his claims has raised concerns that he was endorsing conspiracy theories on right-wing YouTube channels that April’s parliamentary elections were rigged. The Democratic Party won those elections by a landslide. The election commission rejected Yoon’s allegations, stating there was no basis to suspect election fraud.
