Seoul, Jan 15 (EFE).- South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol was refusing to talk during interrogations on Wednesday following his pre-dawn arrest 43 days after his declaration of martial law last month.
A convoy transporting Yoon left his residence at 10.33 am local time (01:33 GMT), hours after police and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) arrived to detain him, making him the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested.
The impeached president was transferred to the CIO headquarters in Gwacheon for questioning but is “currently refusing to testify,” according to a CIO official cited by the local Yonhap news agency.
The official added that the sessions were not being recorded due to Yoon’s objections.
CIO Deputy Director Lee Jae-seung conducted the first two and a half hours of questioning attempts. The agency has 48 hours to interrogate him, during which it must either obtain an extension or release him.
Yoon is being investigated by a t CIO, police, and defense ministry team over allegations of insurrection and abuse of power linked to his martial law declaration.
In a recorded video message released after his arrest, the president said, “Although it is an illegal investigation, I decided to agree to appear at the CIO in order to prevent ugly bloodshed.”
Although he was refusing to testify, he defended his position on social media in a long letter ed to his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon.
“Martial law is not a crime. Martial law is an exercise of presidential authority to overcome a national crisis,” one line read.
A tense pre-dawn operation
Preparation for the operation to arrest Yoon began at 3.20 am local time, and before dawn in Seoul, some 3,200 police officers and dozens of CIO officers and other agencies were deployed to the presidential residence.
The deployment was intended to deal with the PSS, a body independent of other national law enforcement agencies and directly responsible to the president, which had blocked a first attempt on Jan. 3 in another tense hours-long standoff with the authorities.
The police force on Wednesday also included around 50 riot officers in the face of the more than 6,000 Yoon ers who gathered around the official residence with the idea of physically preventing access to the compound in Yongsan, in the center of Seoul.
At 5.10 am, police officers and the State Prosecutor’s Office presented the arrest warrant to the PSS.
The next two hours were chaotic as several attempts to enter the presidential compound were blocked by human chains, barricades of vehicles, and barbed wire set up by the PSS and by parliamentarians from Yoon’s ruling party as protests by ers of the president intensified in the surrounding area.
After 7 am, police managed to enter the compound using ladders to get over fences and bying other security perimeters to enter the main building of the residence, where negotiations began with Yoon’s legal team and the PSS.
Yoon was finally removed at 10:33 am after his legal team announced that he agreed to appear before the anti-corruption office.
The president is expected to be held at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, near the CIO headquarters.
Yoon had been hiding in his residence since parliament impeached him on Dec. 14 following his failed martial law declaration, during which he accused the opposition, which has a parliamentary majority, of acting as pro-North Korean forces. The declaration was overturned by a parliamentary vote.
If found guilty of insurrection, the conservative leader, who has been banned from leaving the country, could face life imprisonment or even the death penalty, although there has been a moratorium on the latter in the country for almost 40 years.
In parallel to the criminal investigation for which he was arrested, the Constitutional Court has opened a case that will determine whether Yoon’s disqualification is definitive or if he is reinstated in office. EFE
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