South Korea arrests impeached president

What happened

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was detained for questioning today, six hours after more than 3,000 police officers staged a predawn raid on the barricaded presidential compound in Seoul. An attempt to arrest Yoon on Jan. 3 was thwarted when about 100 anticorruption police were turned back by his presidential guard.

Yoon, 64, had been holed up in the presidential residence since the opposition-led parliament impeached him last month over his short-lived effort to impose martial law. A Seoul court issued a detention warrant for Yoon after he ignored three summonses.

Who said what

Yoon, who is being investigated for attempting an insurrection with his martial law decree, is the first sitting South Korean president detained on criminal charges. In a video released soon after his detention, he criticized the "invalid warrant" and "illegal investigation" but said he would go with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials to "prevent any unsavory bloodshed." The recently formed CIO is leading the investigation in conjunction with the police and military.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Deputy Prime Minister Choi-Sang-mok — the acting president after the prime minister was also impeached — early today urged the police and presidential security service to avoid "physical violence" in the raid. Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, called Yoon's detention the "first step toward restoring constitutional order, democracy and realizing the rule of law."

What next?

The CIO can question Yoon for 48 hours before either securing an arrest warrant to detain him for up to 20 more days, or setting him free. The Constitutional Court, charged with upholding or reversing his removal from office, will hold a second hearing Thursday; a hearing Tuesday lasted less than 5 minutes after Yoon refused to attend.