SEOUL: A South Korean court issued warrants Tuesday to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol and search his office and residence over his short-lived declaration of martial law.
\nThe country\u2019s anti-corruption agency said it is investigating whether his declaration amounted to rebellion. But experts still say there is little chance of detention or searches unless Yoon is formally removed from office.
\nThe Seoul Western District Court issued warrants to detain Yoon and to search the presidential office and residence in central Seoul, according to a statement from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities.
\nUnder South Korean law, the leader of a rebellion can face the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted. Yoon has presidential immunity from most criminal prosecution, but the privilege does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.
\nYoon\u2019s powers have been suspended since the opposition-controlled National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14 over his imposition of martial law, which drew hundreds of troops and police officers into Seoul streets.
\nYoon has argued his decree was a legitimate act of governance, calling it a warning to the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, which he has called \u201ca monster\u201d and \u201canti-state forces\u201d that has used its legislative majority to impeach top officials, undermine the government\u2019s budget, and which he claims sympathizes with North Korea.
\nThe Constitutional Court is to determine whether to dismiss Yoon as president or reinstate him.
\nExperts said Yoon is likely to ignore the warrants. He\u2019s ignored repeated requests by investigative authorities to appear for questioning, and the presidential security service has blocked attempts to search his office and residence citing a law that bans raids on sites with state secrets.
\nA lawyer for Yoon rejected the anti-corruption agency\u2019s request for warrants on Monday, arguing it lacked legal authority to investigate rebellion charges.
\nThe anti-corruption agency said it has no immediate plans on how to proceed with the warrants.
\n\u201cUnless Yoon voluntarily lets them detain him, there is no way to detain him,\u201d said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. \u201cShould investigators have hand-to-hand fights with the security service?\u201d
\nChoi said that investigators were still likely to visit Yoon\u2019s residence to show they are strictly and fairly carrying out their work.
\nPark Sung-min, president of Seoul-based political consulting firm MIN Consulting, said the push for an arrest warrant is likely an attempt to pressure Yoon to cooperate with investigations.
\nFormer President Park Geun-hye, who was thrown out of office in 2017 following an impeachment over a corruption scandal, also refused to meet with prosecutors while in office. She underwent questioning by them and was arrested after the Constitutional Court removed her from office.
\nYoon\u2019s imposition of martial law lasted only six hours but triggered huge political turmoil, halting high-level diplomacy and rattling financial markets. Despite Yoon\u2019s deployment of troops and police, enough lawmakers managed to enter the assembly chamber to overturn it unanimously.
\nYoon\u2019s defense minister, police chief and several top military commanders have already been arrested over their roles in the martial law enactment.
\nYoon has claimed he wasn\u2019t trying to stop the functioning of the assembly, saying that the troops were sent to maintain order, and also denied planning to arrest politicians. But comments by now-arrested commanders of military units sent to the assembly have contradicted this claim. Kwak Jong-keun, the commander of the Army Special Warfare Command, testified at the National Assembly that Yoon called on troops to \u201cquickly knock down the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside.\u201d Kwak said he did not carry out Yoon\u2019s orders.
\nThe country\u2019s political crisis deepened last Friday, when the Democratic Party and other small opposition parties voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo as well over wrangling over his refusal to fill in three justice seats at the Constitutional Court. Observers say adding more justices could affect the court\u2019s ruling on Yoon\u2019s impeachment.
\nThe deputy prime minister and finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, has become South Korea\u2019s new interim leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: A South Korean court issued warrants Tuesday to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol and search his office and residence over his short-lived declaration of martial law. The country\u2019s anti-corruption agency said it is investigating whether his declaration amounted to rebellion. But experts still say there is little chance of detention or searches unless …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":74960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74963,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74952\/revisions\/74963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}