Written by Jo Min Park and Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s anti-corruption agency said on Friday it would ask a Seoul court to extend the detention of detained President Yoon Suk-yeol after the president again refused to be questioned by investigators.
On Wednesday, Yoon became the first South Korean president to be arrested, as part of an investigation into whether he committed rebellion when he briefly imposed martial law in early December. He is being held in a detention center in Seoul.
In order to detain Yoon for a longer period, investigators with the Corruption Investigation Bureau of Senior Officials (CIO) leading the investigation must ask the court to approve an arrest warrant for up to 20 days.
“I think you can consider it almost over,” an IT office official told reporters when asked if investigators were ready to submit a request to detain Yoon again.
The official told reporters that Yoon’s current detention period is set to end by Friday evening.
The Seoul Central District Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by Yoon’s lawyers regarding the legality of his detention.
Opinion polls showed the former president blocked the CIO’s efforts to question him on Thursday and again on Friday while his party has taken advantage of political polarization to improve its approval ratings since Yoon’s arrest.
“He made his basic position fully clear on the first day (of arrest), and we believe there is no reason or need to answer in a back-and-forth question-and-answer manner,” Seok Dong-hyun, Yoon’s lawyer, said in a statement. statement.
The suspended president’s legal team has denied that Yoon masterminded the rebellion, a crime in South Korea that is technically punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
Seok said Friday that he expects investigators will seek to issue an arrest warrant, but he hopes there will be a more careful and comprehensive examination of the “illegality” of the arrest when the court reviews the arrest warrant.
South Korea is facing its worst political crisis in decades, sparked by Yoon’s brief attempt to impose martial law on December 3, which caught the nation by surprise and was quickly rejected by Parliament.
Yoon was impeached on December 14, and faces a trial before the Constitutional Court that began this week to decide whether to permanently suspend his powers or restore him to office.
Support the ruling party
Opinion polls showed that most South Koreans support his impeachment, but Yoon’s legal ordeal and his challenge to his arrest appear to have excited some of his supporters.
The approval rating for Yoon’s ruling People Power Party reached 39% in a Gallup Korea poll published on Friday, up from 34% a week ago, surpassing the main opposition Democratic Party’s 36% for the first time since August.
Gallup Korea said Yoon and his party’s constant messages to his supporters appeared to have had an impact as political divisions over his arrest deepened.
Yoon was arrested after a weeks-long standoff when more than 3,000 police officers swarmed his residence. A previous attempt to arrest him on January 3 failed after an hours-long confrontation between investigators and Leon’s personal security.
Kim Song-hoon, the acting head of the Presidential Security Service, was arrested on Friday for obstructing investigators’ initial attempt on January 3 to arrest Yoon, Yonhap said.
Kim told reporters that he was carrying out his “legitimate security duties” and denied allegations by some opposition lawmakers that Yoon ordered guards to use weapons against investigators trying to arrest him.
While key ally Washington criticized Yoon’s martial law declaration, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned last week that there was a risk that nuclear-armed North Korea could try to exploit the political situation in South Korea.
North Korea has largely avoided public comment on the situation in Seoul, but Yoon’s arrest was reported in state media on Friday, two days after the event.
The Rodong Sinmun newspaper quoted foreign media as saying that this is the first arrest of a sitting president in South Korea.
“Yoon Suk-yeol does not follow legal procedures at the expense of the national system for the sake of individual interests,” Rodong Sinmun said.