South Korean authorities investigating ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted to enter his residence before dawn on Wednesday (local time) in a new attempt to arrest him on insurrection charges related to the March 3 declaration of martial law. December.
Video footage showed hundreds of police officers ascending the road leading to his hillside home, where he has been staying for weeks, protected by a small army of personal security guards.
Police officers, some of them carrying ladders and wire cutters, had already passed through a crowd of Yoon supporters gathered nearby. A previous arrest attempt, on January 3, failed after a six-hour standoff between investigators and presidential security agents and Yoon’s military guards.
Yoon’s lawyers argued that the attempts to arrest him were illegal and were designed to publicly humiliate him.
Police said they sent 3,200 officers to Yoon’s residence to carry out the arrest on Wednesday, where hundreds of pro-Yoon protesters and members of his People Power Party also gathered before dawn in sub-zero temperatures.
“As I have repeatedly emphasized the need to avoid physical conflicts between state agencies… I will hold those responsible severely accountable if unfortunate events occur,” Acting President Choi Sang-mok said in a statement on Wednesday.
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Yoon’s declaration of martial law stunned South Koreans and plunged one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies into a period of unprecedented political turmoil.
The arrest warrant is the first ever issued against a South Korean president while in office.
Separately, the Constitutional Court is deliberating whether to uphold the parliamentarians’ impeachment vote and permanently remove Yoon from office.
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Braving the early morning cold on Wednesday, hundreds of people chanted and waved flags with the slogans “Stop the Steal,” referring to Yoon’s baseless allegations of electoral fraud — one of the reasons he gave to justify his declaration of martial law that was short-lived.
The opposition Democratic Party, which holds a majority in Parliament after a landslide victory in last year’s legislative elections, issued a statement calling on Yoon to accept the arrest warrant.
“There is no more place to run,” the party said.
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Yoon’s lawyers say the arrest warrant is illegal because it was issued by a court in the wrong jurisdiction and the team set to investigate him had no legal mandate to do so.
