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PremiumSouth Korean President Arrest LIVE: Investigators seeking to arrest South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his attempted martial law declaration faced a standoff with the Presidential Security Service (PSS) outside the presidential residence on Friday, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Officials from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) presented warrants for Yoon's arrest and a search of the residence. However, PSS chief Park Chong-jun blocked their entry, citing security restrictions on the premises.
An arrest would be the first for an incumbent South Korean president.
Officials from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), which is leading a joint team of investigators that include the police and prosecutors, had arrived at the gates of Yoon's compound shortly after 7 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday), according to Reuters witnesses.
Media reports said the CIO vehicles did not immediately enter the compound, partly due to a bus blocking the driveway.
Some CIO officials later filed through an opened gate on foot and past the bus, but then briefly faced another bus and an armoured vehicle further up the driveway, before they were moved.
It was unclear whether the Presidential Security Service, which has blocked access by investigators with a search warrant to Yoon's office and official residence, would try to stop the arrest.
Yoon's lawyer said in a statement on Friday that execution of an invalid arrest warrant against Yoon is unlawful, and they will take legal action, without elaborating.
Catch all the LIVE updates on Yoon Suk Yeol arrest news
North Korean state media reported on Friday that South Korea was in a state of "chaos" and politically paralyzed due to an effort by investigators to carry out an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The statement, issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), was an uncommon commentary on the political unrest in South Korea in recent weeks, and did not cite any officials.
Investigators seeking to arrest South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his attempted martial law declaration faced a standoff with the Presidential Security Service (PSS) outside the presidential residence on Friday, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Officials from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) presented warrants for Yoon's arrest and a search of the residence. However, PSS chief Park Chong-jun blocked their entry, citing security restrictions on the premises.
"Anyone who obstructs the execution of an arrest warrant will be punished on charges of obstruction of special official duties and complicity in insurrection," Democratic Party parliament floor representative Park Chan-dae warned Yoon's security forces as quoted by BBC.
Two South Korean Military Officials, Including Martial Law Commander, Indicted and Detained, Yonhap stated as reported by Reuters.
Lee Hye-sook, a 57-year-old Yoon supporter, said protesters were trying to stop opposition figures from "attempting to transform our country into a socialist state, similar to North Korea". Yoon has doubled down on claims the opposition was in league with South Korea's communist enemies.
South Korean officials have previously failed to execute similar arrest warrants for lawmakers -- in 2000 and 2004 -- due to party members and supporters blocking police for the seven days the warrants were valid.
CIO investigators including senior prosecutor Lee Dae-hwan were let through heavy security barricades to enter the residence to attempt to execute their warrant to detain Yoon, AFP reporters saw. But they were "blocked by a military unit inside" after entering, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The head of South Korea's Presidential Security Service says investigating authorities cannot search Yoon's residence, as reported by Reuters
South Korea’s constitution gives the president the power to use the military to keep order in “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states." Martial law powers can include suspending civil rights such as freedom of the press and assembly and temporarily limiting the powers of the courts and government agencies.
On Saturday, December 14, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached by the National Assembly following his controversial attempt to declare martial law, which lasted only six hours. The vote concluded with 204 lawmakers in favor of impeachment, 85 against, and three abstentions, while eight votes were nullified.
"The execution of the arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol has begun," said the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which is probing Yoon's short-lived declaration of martial law, with its officials and police seen entering the president's residence.
Protesters gathered in the pre-dawn hours near the residence, with the numbers swelling into the hundreds amid media reports that investigating authorities would soon try to execute the arrest warrant that was approved on Tuesday after Yoon refused summons to appear
Authorities sought on Friday to execute an unprecedented arrest warrant for impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, evading a crowd of protesters but facing off with security forces inside his residence.
Yoon is under criminal investigation for insurrection over his Dec. 3. martial law attempt that stunned South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy and one of the region's most vibrant democracies.
