South Korea’s anti-corruption agency said it received a new court warrant on Tuesday to detain embattled President Yoon Suk Yeol after the Presidential Security Service blocked a previous attempt last week.
The corruption investigation office for high-ranking officials, which plans to question the embattled president on Dec. 3 charges of rebellion over his short-lived martial law decree, did not immediately confirm how long the warrant would remain valid.
The agency’s chief prosecutor, Oh Dong-woon, declined to answer when asked by lawmakers when the warrant would expire, saying such information is sensitive as the agency and police consider ways to execute it.
Detention warrants generally last for seven days but can be extended up to about 10 days. Oh did not say when investigators planned to next attempt to detain Yoon.
The Seoul Western District Court last week initially issued a warrant to detain Yoon and a separate warrant to search his residence because he repeatedly defied authorities by refusing to appear for questioning. Was done.
About 150 anti-corruption agency investigators and police officers attempted to detain Yoon on Friday but retreated to his residence in Seoul after a tense standoff that lasted more than five hours with the Presidential Security Service. Investigators did not make another attempt to detain Yoon and the previous court warrant expired after a week on Monday.
If investigators succeed in detaining Yoon, they will likely ask the court for formal arrest authorization. Otherwise he will be released after 48 hours.
The anti-corruption agency and police have pledged to make more forceful efforts to detain Yoon, which could be a complicated process as long as he remains at his official residence.
The anti-corruption agency is leading a joint investigation with police and military into Yun’s brief power grab, which included declaring martial law and sending troops to surround the National Assembly. The MPs who managed to get through the blockade voted to lift martial law a few hours later.
Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on December 14, charging him with rebellion. The Constitutional Court has begun deliberations on whether to formally remove Yun from office or reinstate him.
Members of the presidential security staff were seen over the weekend erecting barbed wire near the gate and on the hills leading to the presidential complex.
Oh confirmed to lawmakers that the agency was debating with police whether to arrest members of the presidential security staff if they forcefully obstructed efforts to detain Yoon. Police have said they are considering “all available options” to bring Yoon into custody and have not publicly ruled out the possibility of deploying SWAT teams, though it is unclear whether investigators will use presidential security. This would risk escalating confrontation with the forces, who are also armed.
Park Jong-joon, head of the Presidential Security Service, has hit back at criticism that it has become Yoon’s personal army, saying he has legal obligations to protect the sitting president. He and his deputy have so far ignored police summons, who planned to question them on suspected obstruction of official duty after Friday’s incidents.
At a parliament hearing on Tuesday, Oh asked the country’s acting leader, the deputy prime minister, to instruct police with a request for the Presidential Security Service to deploy personnel at Yun’s residence to increase security ahead of Friday’s detention attempt. Criticized Choi Sang-mok. Police did not follow Choi’s instructions and Oh said the agency was reviewing whether Choi’s actions constituted obstruction of official duty.
The agency has repeatedly asked Choi to instruct the Presidential Security Service to comply with the execution of the detention warrant against Yoon. Choi has not commented.
Yoon’s lawyers argued that the detention and search warrant against the President could not be applied to his residence due to a law that protects places potentially involving military secrets from being searched without the consent of the person in charge. – Which would be like this. They also argue that the anti-corruption office does not have the legal authority to investigate allegations of rebellion and hand over police to detain Yoon.
Yoon’s lawyers filed a complaint with government prosecutors on Monday against Oh and six other anti-corruption and police officials over Friday’s detention attempt, which they claim was illegal. Lawyers also filed complaints against the country’s acting national police chief, the acting defense minister and two Seoul police officers for ignoring a request by the Presidential Security Service to provide additional forces to prevent the attempted detention of Yoon.