President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday became the first sitting South Korean leader to be arrested for questioning by criminal investigators, ending a weeks-long standoff over his declaration of martial law that plunged the country into crisis policy.
Mr. Yoon’s security guards managed to prevent investigators from arresting him on January 3, when they made their first attempt to execute a court-issued detention warrant. Since then, the country has been gripped by fears of a violent clash if both sides refuse to back down.
But when investigators returned Wednesday morning with many more police officers, some of them carrying ladders to scale defensive barricades, Mr. Yoon’s bodyguards offered no obvious resistance. Mr. Yoon then made an agreement with many law enforcement officials to accompany them. He was not handcuffed and was allowed to travel to investigators’ headquarters in a presidential motorcade rather than in a police car.
In a video message released shortly after, Mr. Yoon said he agreed to undergo questioning to avoid a “bloody” clash between his bodyguards and the police. But he called the investigation and the arrest warrant against him illegal.
Mr. Yoon is now to be questioned by officials from the Senior Officials Corruption Investigation Bureau, who are investigating whether he committed insurrection when he declared martial law on Dec. 3. Investigators can question him for 48 hours, then request an insurrection. a separate court warrant to officially arrest him.
Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree last month was quickly rejected by the National Assembly, and the opposition has since accused him of committing an insurrection by sending armed troops into the Assembly to seize of the legislature and arrest his political enemies. He was the first South Korean leader to place his country under military rule since the country’s democratization began in the late 1980s.
