CIO to summon impeached President Yoon for interrogation amidst ongoing investigation

Oh Dong-woon, chairman of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking staff, said Wednesday that his staff will try to force President Yoon Suk Yeol to comply with interrogation over his Dec. 3 martial law proclamation and subsequent directives.

Oh stated that the CIO will try again to get Yoon to comply with a summons. The impeached president has refused to appear for interrogation since his detention on January 15.

The CIO questioned Yoon on the day of his detention, but he remained mute for more than ten hours.

Addressing the reporters at the government complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, he stated that “President Yoon must respect the decision of the court. … (Yoon) is refusing the summons, so we have no choice but to forcibly bring him in.”

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He also added that “If (Yoon’s side) has objections, they can appeal within the boundaries of the law.”

Yoon is under criminal investigation and will face an impeachment trial for allegedly issuing improper commands to high-ranking military and police personnel. The purported directives include blocking the National Assembly from meeting and arresting significant political personalities, such as the heads of both the government and key opposition parties and Parliamentary Speaker Woo Shik.

Yoon testified at his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, denying that he issued such arrest orders and claiming that the martial law command’s deployment of troops to the National Assembly was not meant to disrupt the legislative vote to abolish the law.

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He maintained that he never meant to carry out the martial law declaration, describing it as “merely a formal procedure” designed to appeal to the public.

The next hearing in the current impeachment trial will take conducted on Thursday, with testimony from Yoon’s long-time confidant, Kim Yong-hyun, who served as defence minister under the martial regime. Kim has been arrested and is being probed for his role in the suspected insurgency, as are numerous high-ranking military officers and National Police Agency Chief Cho Ji-ho.

The hearing on February 4 will contain testimony from Capital Defence Command commander Lee Jin-woo and Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyeong, both of whom are suspected adherents of Yoon’s purported uprising. Both have been arrested.

Hong Jang-won, who resigned as the National Intelligence Agency’s first deputy director, is also scheduled to attend at the February hearing. In a conversation with a politician, he was the first to report that Yoon had ordered the arrests of prominent political individuals.