South Korea’s anti-corruption agency announced on Monday that it will seek an extension of the arrest warrant against ousted president Yoon Suk-yeol.
The arrest warrant to detain and interrogate Yoon (who ignored three subpoenas to testify), issued on December 31 by a Seoul court, expires at midnight today (3pm in Lisbon).
“We plan to request an extension this Monday, which requires stating the reasons for exceeding the standard seven-day deadline,” said the deputy director of the Office of Investigating Corruption Among Senior Public Officials (CIO). South Korean.
At a press conference, Lee Jae-seung also said that the agency asked the police in a letter to take charge of executing Yoon’s arrest warrant.
The CIO asked police to take charge of the arrest “given their experience in executing arrest warrants,” Lee added.
This was three days after the Presidential Security Service prevented CIO agents, accompanied by dozens of police officers, from entering the residence to detain him, after clashes that lasted hours.
A police representative told South Korean public news agency Yonhap that police are internally evaluating the legal viability of the CIO’s request.
On Sunday, the same court that issued the warrant rejected a request for annulment filed by Yoon’s lawyers, who argued that only the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and not the CIO, can request detention for insurrection.
Yoon was accused of insurrection for trying to impose martial law in early December, which was revoked six hours later by parliament, which approved the president’s dismissal on December 14.
The political crisis that has since ravaged the country reached a new episode on Friday, when the police were prevented by Yoon’s security guards from capturing the former president.
If Yoon had been taken away by investigators, it would have been the first arrest of a sitting head of state in South Korean history.
The 64-year-old former prosecutor officially remains president until the Constitutional Court confirms or annuls the dismissal.
Suspended from office and confined to his home, Yoon is accused of having shaken the young South Korean democracy on the night of December 3rd to 4th, by unexpectedly proclaiming martial law, a coup that revived painful memories of the military dictatorship.
In a parliament surrounded by soldiers, a sufficient number of deputies managed to meet to vote on a motion demanding the lifting of the state of emergency.
Pressured by the National Assembly, by thousands of protesters and limited by the Constitution, Yoon was forced to revoke martial law just hours after declaring it.
Yoon is the target of several investigations, including one for insurrection, a crime punishable by the death penalty.
Source: rr.sapo.pt
