South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested by the country’s Corruption Investigation Office for High Ranking officials.
An initial attempt to arrest Yoon on January 3rd failed after agents from South Korea’s Presidential Security Service prevented authorities from entering his residence.
The impeached president is being investigated on insurrection charges following his martial law decree in December.
Yoon is the first sitting president to be arrested in South Korean history.
According to the BBC, Yoon will only be removed from office if the country’s Constitutional Court upholds his impeachment.
JUST IN:
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been arrested.
pic.twitter.com/5zt1bdaVvX
— Truthseeker (@Xx17965797N) January 15, 2025
BREAKING: Impeached South Korean President Yoon has been arrested over martial law attempt pic.twitter.com/rldMjFqT8z
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 15, 2025
BBC reports:
Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) failed to arrest him on 3 January after being locked in a six-hour stand-off with his security detail.
But just before dawn on Wednesday, a much larger team of investigators and police arrived at his residence in central Seoul, armed with ladders to climb over buses blocking its entrance and bolt cutters to remove barbed wire.
Other officers in the arrest team, which numbered around 1,000, scaled walls and hiked up nearby trails to reach the presidential residence.
After several hours, authorities announced that Yoon had been arrested.
In a three-minute video released just before his arrest, the 64-year-old leader said he would co-operate with the investigators, while repeating previous claims that the warrant was not legally valid.
“I decided to appear before the CIO, even though it is an illegal investigation, in order to prevent any unsavoury bloodshed,” he said, adding that he witnessed officials “invade” his home’s security perimeter with fire equipment.
JUST IN:
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) January 15, 2025
Media outlets reported over 3,000 police officers participated in the second attempt to gain access to the impeached president’s residence.
WATCH:
BREAKING:
A standoff has started at the presidential residence between 2000+ South Korean police officers and a military unit numbering around 200 well-armed soldiers protecting president Yoon.
The police officers are there to arrest the president for introducing martial law pic.twitter.com/lzY38A8fSX
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 14, 2025
Per CNBC:
The CIO had initially requested the arrest warrant after Yoon failed to turn up for questioning, which was granted on Dec. 31 by a Seoul district court. The warrant was then extended after it initially expired on Jan. 6.
Yoon faces possible charges of insurrection after his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, a charge which is not subject to presidential immunity and carries the death penalty at maximum.
Yoon made a surprise late night broadcast and declared martial law last month, citing the need to protect the country from “North Korean communist forces” and “antistate forces.” This was the first time martial law was declared in South Korea in over 40 years.
Lawmakers then managed to get past police barricades and voted down the declaration at the country’s parliament, before filing impeachment motions against Yoon a few days later. Yoon was impeached on Dec. 14 and suspended from office.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court has opened the impeachment trial on Jan. 14 against Yoon, but adjourned it to Jan. 16 after Yoon did not turn up.
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