After authorities scandal: “Yoon has decided” – South Korea’s suspended president arrested | EUROtoday

South Korea’s suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested within the capital Seoul in early December due to the transient declaration of martial regulation. Police officers and investigators from the Anti-Corruption Agency (CIO) arrested Yoon at his residence on Wednesday morning to take him to the prosecutor’s workplace, South Korea’s official Yonhap News Agency reported.

Shortly earlier than, Yoon’s lawyer Seok Dong Hyeon had declared on the web service Facebook that the ex-president wished to show himself in after investigators had entered his residence to execute an arrest warrant in opposition to Yoon: “President Yoon has decided to appear in person at the corruption investigation agency today. Yoon will also give a speech later in the day, Seok explained.

Investigators managed to get into the presidential residence when they tried to arrest Yoon again on Wednesday. “We do not know the precise variety of people who find themselves within the residence, however there are prosecutors there,” an anti-corruption agency official said. As journalists from the AFP news agency saw, investigators were involved in clashes with people defending the grounds of the residence. Television footage showed investigators using ladders to access the grounds of Yoon’s residence.

Already on January 3, officers from Yoon’s presidential security service, including soldiers, prevented investigators from arresting the president at his residence in Seoul. They then initially gave up their plan. The new attempt to arrest Yoon is based on a new arrest warrant issued on Tuesday.

Yoon plunged South Korea into a political crisis at the beginning of December by briefly declaring martial law. He had used the measure in a budget dispute and thereby alarmed both at home and abroad. As a result, tens of thousands of people took to the streets against Yoon and for the preservation of democracy in South Korea, but Yoon’s supporters also demonstrated.

Parliament voted in favor of removing the president, on which the Constitutional Court still has to make a final decision. The trial began on Tuesday and may take place in Yoon’s absence.

At the same time, the anti-corruption authority began investigating the head of state, who was deposed by parliament, because of the declaration of martial law. However, Yoon had so far refused to speak to prosecutors and barricaded himself in the presidential residence.