January 6, 2025
SEOUL – Law enforcement, Yoon’s representatives accuse each other of obstructing public officials; Opposition claims presidential security gave orders to shoot if overpowered
Faced with a literal roadblock in attempting to detain embattled President Yoon Suk Yeol on suspicion of insurrection, South Korea’s joint investigative body of prosecutors weighed its options as the warrant neared expiration.
A detention warrant for Yoon on allegations related to his Dec. 3 martial law declaration is set to expire at midnight on Monday.
In a closed-door briefing, an official with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which has the power to independently apply for a warrant, told reporters Sunday that it had “various options.” Those include attempting to execute the detention warrant again Monday, asking the court to extend the deadline, or seeking a new arrest warrant. He added Yoon’s representatives did not express an intention to appear at the CIO for questioning.
Should CIO-led investigators manage to detain Yoon before midnight on Monday, they will be given 48 hours to question him. To hold him longer, they would need to apply for another warrant allowing them to keep Yoon in custody for up to 20 additional days.
In the meantime, law enforcement and Yoon’s legal representatives sought action against each other after Friday’s standoff at the presidential residence between presidential security and a 150-person team of investigators and police officers trying to execute the warrant.
On Sunday, Yoon’s representatives said in a statement they would file a complaint on Monday against the 150 CIO, police and Defense Ministry officials involved in the attempt to execute the warrant, including CIO Chief Oh Dong-woon. They accused the officials of obstructing public duties, inflicting harm on public officials and breaching the Protection of Military Bases and Installations Act.
Police, on the other hand, urged officials of the Presidential Security Service, which provides bodyguard protection for the president, to appear for questioning as it began its probe into their alleged obstruction of public duty. PSS Chief Park Jong-joon, who rejected the police request Saturday, was told to appear Tuesday.
Lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, including Floor Leader Park Chan-dae, also claimed Sunday that the PSS chief had instructed presidential bodyguards to shoot at investigators entering Yoon’s residence if they found themselves overpowered.
The PSS denied the claims and said it had never considered doing so, adding it would take legal action against groundless rumors. The PSS chief later said the institution would be neglecting its duty to guard Yoon if it consented to the investigators’ warrant execution, given the controversy surrounding the validity of the warrant to detain him.
This came as some 50 staff of the investigative body and police combined attempted to enter Yoon’s residence on Friday. The investigators managed to walk past the main gate, but they ended up retreating after a standoff with the presidential security and Army soldiers that lasted more than five hours.
Tensions flared over the weekend as figures of the conservative bloc supportive of Yoon denied the eligility of the court to issue the warrant, and of the CIO to receive it, as the office’s investigations are supposed to be limited to corruption.
On the other hand, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea demanded the CIO investigators push to detain Yoon, while accusing top officials at Yoon’s presidential security of obstructing the investigators’ duty to exercise the detention warrant.
Won Hee-ryong, a seasoned conservative politician and former land minister of the Yoon administration, noted on his Facebook account Sunday that the CIO had no jurisdiction to investigate allegations of insurrection.
He added that the court is not eligible to approve investigators’ entry to a high-security area, so the judge who issued the warrant deserves an impeachment.
Won also demanded that the parliamentary vote on Dec. 14 that passed a motion to impeach Yoon — which is currently under review by the Constitutional Court — be nullified because the opposition parties on Friday removed insurrection allegations from the impeachment motion.
“Any attempt to impeach (a president) without constitutional grounds or to illegally detain the incumbent president, just because the president is not to their liking or had committed a misdeed, should not be tolerated,” Won said.
Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, a five-term lawmaker of the ruling party, told reporters Saturday after the party lawmakers’ meeting that President Yoon was “paying attention to the collapse of South Korea’s judicial system.”
The lawmaker also said President Yoon should take the collapse of South Korea motivated by the “left-leaning judicial cartel” seriously.
However, the Democratic Party’s floor spokesperson Rep. Yoon Jong-kun said Sunday that a delay in retaining Yoon by the CIO would “disrupt the constitutional order of South Korea.”
Lawmakers of the Democratic Party later on Sunday visited the headquarters of the CIO and the police’s National Office of Investigation to call for swifter action to execute the warrant.
The controversy centers on whether the CIO officials are entitled to seek charges against a high-ranking official for alleged insurrection.
Under the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the CIO, the scope of the body’s investigation does not explicitly include insurrection as the “corruption of a high-ranking official.”
However, the law indicates that the CIO can look into allegations directly related to an ongoing corruption investigation it is carrying out, including crimes outside its jurisdiction. The police cannot apply for a court’s warrant alone, and without the CIO, would need the prosecution’s support.
The CIO — which has the authority to apply for a warrant but does not have the power to indict an official — has claimed that a Seoul Western District Court’s decision to issue a warrant “recognized (CIO’s) power to investigate the insurrection allegations.”
The court decision brought flak from the ruling bloc. On Thursday, Rep. Na Kyung-won of the ruling party claimed the court judge who issued the warrant Tuesday belonged to a liberal-leaning association.
The same court on Sunday dismissed the injunction filed by Yoon’s representatives on Sunday, clearing the way for the investigators to enter high-security areas through the court warrant.
According to the CIO, it sent formal documents twice before Saturday to ask for the government’s cooperation in exercising the warrant, but the government, led by acting President and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, was silent on the issue.
Choi was quoted as saying by his office Sunday that any public official’s injury in the process of law enforcement must not take place.