South Korea's anti-corruption agency requests police help in detaining impeached president

South Korea’s anti-corruption agency has requested that police take over efforts to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after its investigators failed to bring him to custody following a standoff with the presidential security service last week.

The agency and police confirmed the discussion on Monday, hours before the one-week warrant for Yoon’s detention was to expire.

The Seoul Western District Court last Tuesday issued a warrant to detain Yoon and a separate warrant to search his residence after the embattled president defied authorities by refusing to appear for questioning over his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3. But executing those warrants is complicated as long as Yoon remains in his official residence.

Yoon has described his power grab as a necessary act of governance against a liberal opposition bogging down his agenda with its legislative majority and has vowed to “fight to the end” against efforts to oust him. While martial law lasted only several hours, it set off turmoil that has shaken the country’s politics, diplomacy and financial markets for weeks and exposed the fragility of South Korea’s democracy while society is deeply polarized.

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The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials will likely seek a new court warrant to extend the window for Yoon’s detention, according to police, which said it was internally reviewing the agency’s request. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the anti-corruption agency will make another attempt to detain Yoon on Monday before the deadline expires at midnight.

The anti-corruption agency has faced questions about its competence after failing to detain Yoon on Friday, and police have the resources to possibly make a more forceful attempt to detain him.

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The agency, which leads a joint investigation with police and military investigators, has been weighing charges of rebellion after Yoon declared martial law and dispatched troops to surround the National Assembly. Lawmakers who managed to get past the blockade voted to lift martial law hours later.

Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the opposition-dominated National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14, accusing him of rebellion, and his fate now lies with the Constitutional Court, which has begun deliberations on whether to formally remove Yoon from office or reinstate him.

Dozens of anti-corruption agency investigators and assisting police officers attempted to detain Yoon on Friday but retreated from his residence in Seoul after a tense standoff with the presidential security service that lasted more than five hours.

After getting around a military unit guarding the residence’s grounds, the agency’s investigators and police were able to approach within 200 meters (about 218 yards) of Yoon’s residential building but were stopped by a barricade comprising around 10 vehicles and approximately 200 members of the presidential security forces and troops. The agency said it wasn’t able to visually confirm whether Yoon was inside the residence.

The agency has urged the country’s acting leader, Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, to instruct the presidential security service to comply with their execution of the detainment warrant. Choi has yet to publicly comment on the issue.

In a video message on Sunday, Park Jong-joon, chief of the presidential security service, hit back against criticism that his organization has become Yoon’s private army, saying it has legal obligations to protect the incumbent president. Park said he instructed his members to not use violence during Friday’s standoff and called for the anti-corruption agency and police to change their approach.

Park and his deputy defied summonses on Saturday from police, who planned to question them over the suspected obstruction of official duty following Friday’s events. Staff from the presidential security service were seen installing barbed wire near the gate and along the hills leading up to Yoon’s residence over the weekend, possibly in preparation for another detention attempt.

Hundreds of South Koreans rallied near Yoon’s residence for hours into early Monday, wrapping themselves in silver-coated mats against the freezing temperatures. It was their second consecutive night of protests, with demonstrators calling for his ouster and arrest.

Yoon’s lawyers have challenged the detention and search warrants against the president, saying they cannot be enforced at his residence due to a law that protects locations potentially linked to military secrets from search without the consent of the person in charge — which would be Yoon. They also argue the anti-corruption office lacks the legal authority to investigate rebellion charges.

Yoon’s legal team has said it will file complaints against the anti-corruption agency’s chief prosecutor, Oh Dong-woon, and approximately 150 investigators and police officers involved in Friday’s detention attempt, which they claim was unlawful. The team said it will also file complaints with public prosecutors against the country’s acting defense minister and police chief for ignoring the presidential security service’s request to provide additional forces to block the detention attempt.