The arrest makes Yoon the first incumbent president in the country's history to be taken into custody
South Korean investigators arrested President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday after launching a pre-dawn operation to bring the impeached leader in for questioning over his short-lived martial law declaration.
Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials arrested Yoon after the president repeatedly defied summons to appear for questioning. CIO investigators abandoned their first attempt to detain him on Jan. 3 after a nearly six-hour standoff due to resistance from Yoon’s security team.
Wednesday’s arrest, confirmed by the CIO, makes Yoon the first incumbent president in the country’s history to be taken into custody. Investigators are examining whether his martial law declaration amounts to an act of insurrection, though Yoon has argued that it was within his power as president to issue the order.
The arrest comes a day after a separate trial at the Constitutional Court kicked off to decide if Yoon should be removed from power after parliament voted to impeach him.
Yoon said in a statement that he agreed to appear before the CIO to avoid any “unsavory bloodshed” taking place in a confrontation. He said his appearance did not mean he accepted the legitimacy of the investigation.
The arrest means the CIO can move forward with its probe into the president’s brief imposition of martial law in early December, a botched move that blindsided the nation and its allies, whipsawed markets and triggered the country’s worst constitutional crisis in decades.
The South Korean won briefly edged higher after Yoon’s arrest, rising as much as 0.2% against the US dollar before giving back ground to be largely flat for the day. Stocks continued to pare earlier gains with the Kospi benchmark index up around 0.2%.
The investigators can hold the president for 48 hours and are questioning him at their office in Gwacheon, near Seoul. The team needs to request another warrant if they want to keep him detained for up to 20 days beyond the initial arrest. Yoon will likely be taken to a detention facility in Uiwang, near Seoul, after questioning on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, the rule of law has collapsed in this country,” Yoon said. “It is truly deplorable to see warrants being issued to agencies that do not have the power to investigate.”
The Democratic Party lauded the development. The main opposition party, which has a majority in the National Assembly, has spearheaded efforts to impeach Yoon and his first stand-in replacement Han Duck-soo as it seeks to trigger an early presidential election.
“The arrest of Yoon Seok Yeol is the first step toward restoring the constitutional order and democracy and realizing the rule of law,” Democratic Party floor leader, Park Chan-dae, said at a party meeting. “It’s come way too late, but I feel relieved to see that government authority and justice are alive in South Korea.”
The arrest operation started before dawn after days of planning the best way to proceed successfully without a violent confrontation. A few hours into the operations, talks between investigators and Yoon’s representatives took place after some members of the investigation team managed to pass a third set of defense lines set up by Yoon’s security team to block access to the presidential compound, Yonhap said.
Those talks ended with Yoon’s arrest. A motorcade was then seen leaving the compound and heading toward the CIO office.
Earlier video showed police officers climbing up ladders and entering hiking trails to access the compound in the district of Yongsan in central Seoul as thousands of protesters gathered nearby in sub-zero temperatures.
“Yoon needs to be held accountable for his error in judgment and for all of the things he did, so that we can calmly look back and say, ‘This won’t ever happen again,’” said Lee Ji-hyun of Korean civil group the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy. “It’s not a conservative or liberal issue, it’s not a ruling or opposition issue, it’s just the voices and demands of ordinary citizens who are educated in democracy in general in South Korean society.”
Tensions had been rising over a potential altercation between government agencies since the first attempt to haul Yoon in failed. The president had been barricaded in his residence, protected by a blockade of buses, barbed wire, and his own armed security guards.
Yoon has been drawing on his own experience as a prosecutor to block and slow down moves to investigate him. Yoon was one of the prosecutors who worked on the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. Park was eventually removed from office in 2017 and imprisoned.
Some 3,000 police officers were mobilized to execute the warrant as an estimated 6,500 demonstrators gathered in support of Yoon, Yonhap said.
“How on Earth can this country have fallen into such ruin?” said Han Ah-rhem, 44, who lives in the Hannam-dong area of Seoul. “The Democrats are impeaching a number of people, they’re cutting all kinds of budgets, they’re making it impossible for the government to run, and so it’s very clear to anybody who’s really rational and educated that this is not a right situation.”
Yoon, 64, has been stripped of his presidential powers and is awaiting a verdict from the Constitutional Court on whether to permanently remove him from office, a process that could take weeks or months.
The impeachment trial to decide Yoon’s fate started on Tuesday. Judges have up to 180 days to review and a ruling in favor of impeachment will trigger a presidential election within 60 days.
Copyright Bloomberg News
