An arrest warrant has been issued for President Yoon Suk Yeol in response to his silent snubbing of a series of summons served to him in recent days for questioning over charges of insurrection.
Our top office correspondent Kim Do-yeon reports.
An arrest warrant has been issued for President Yoon Suk Yeol by a Seoul local court.
This means for the first time ever a sitting president can be taken into custody by law enforcement authorities.
When the actual detaining will take place is typically not revealed, but the warrant is valid for seven days until next Monday.
According to a CIO official, Yoon, once detained, may be held at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, just south of Seoul.
On top of this, search warrants have been issued as well and locations include anywhere that President Yoon could have been.
This comes as on Monday at midnight, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials requested an arrest warrant after three failed tries to summon President Yoon for questioning.
On the request two allegations against President Yoon were stated.
One for leading an insurrection and the other for abusing authority to obstruct someone from exercising their rights.
On the other hand, President Yoon’s legal representatives had stated that the CIO had no authority over investigating insurrection charges so the requests were not valid.
But now, with the court’s decision to issue the arrest warrant, it appears that these two issues are settled; there is probable cause for the two charges, and the CIO has the authority to investigate President Yoon for insurrection charges.
However President Yoon’s legal representatives said the court issuing an arrest warrant is in fact illegal and invalid.
“The issuance of the warrant does not resolve everything. It was requested by an institution that clearly lacks legal authority, and the process of requesting the warrant was not transparent.”
The attorney added that Yoon’s legal representatives will dispute this decision at the Constitutional Court.
In the meantime, the Presidential Security Service is now under heavy pressure as to how the detention process will go.
For the time being, the Service said that the security measures related to the execution of the warrant will be carried out in accordance with due legal procedures.
There has been an issue as there could be a clash between law enforcement and Yoon’s security service.
Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News.
Source : Arirang TV, https://www.arirang.com/news/view?id=279498
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