A joint investigation team announced this Monday that it has requested an arrest warrant against South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol for his declaration of martial law on December 3 after the president ignored three summonses for questioning. about it.
The announcement marks the first time in the democratic history of the Asian country that a president still in office faces the possibility of being arrested. Yoon was dismissed on December 14 by the National Assembly (Parliament), which has temporarily stripped him of his functions until the Constitutional Court decides between now and June whether to restore his powers or permanently disqualify him.
The arrest request was submitted to a court in the Western District of Seoul, as representatives of the investigation team, which includes the anti-corruption office, the police and the investigation unit of the Ministry of National Defense, explained to the media.
The petition alleges that Yoon led an insurrection and abuse of office by declaring a state of emergency on Dec. 3 and that he allegedly ordered the military to prevent parliament members from voting against his decision to revoke it.
Parliamentarians finally managed to vote against martial law, apparently thanks in part to the refusal of middle military commanders to follow orders, forcing the president to rescind the state of emergency within hours of declaring it.
Yoon, who is banned from leaving the country, has denied the allegations, arguing that his declaration of martial law was an “act of governance” intended to warn the opposition, which has a majority in Parliament, against what he has described as an abuse. of the legislative branch that seeks to undermine the State and support the North Korean regime, with whom the South is technically at war.
The crime of insurrection is the only one in which immunity does not prevail in South Korea, which punishes it, in the case of those who are considered leaders of an uprising, with life imprisonment or the death penalty (on which there is a moratorium in the Asian country since 1997).
Yoon’s legal representatives announced shortly after the news broke that they would present a brief protesting the request and recalled that technically only the Prosecutor’s Office can request a preventive arrest warrant in South Korea.
The joint investigation team, which is scrutinizing Yoon in parallel with the Prosecutor’s Office, also explained that it has asked the court today for a search warrant for the Presidential Office and the so-called presidential security shelter, given the problems that the presidential security service has imposed to gather evidence.
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