Yoon Suk Yeol has become South Korea’s first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody.
Yoon, 64, is being investigated on charges of insurrection for a failed martial law order on 3 December that plunged the country into turmoil. He has also been impeached by parliament and suspended – but will only be removed from office if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment. However, Yoon’s dramatic arrest on Wednesday brings to an end a weeks-long stand-off between investigators and his presidential security team.
Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) failed to arrest him on 3 January after being locked in a six-hour stand-off with his security detail. But just before dawn on Wednesday, a much larger team of investigators and police arrived at his residence in central Seoul, armed with ladders to climb over buses blocking its entrance and bolt cutters to remove barbed wire. Other officers in the arrest team, which numbered around 1,000, scaled walls and hiked up nearby trails to reach the presidential residence.
After several hours, authorities announced that Yoon had been arrested. Pro-Yoon supporters continued to protest against the arrest outside the CIO’s office. They had gathered outside his house since before dawn on Wednesday, along with those opposing him.
The anti-Yoon crowd blasted out a “congratulations and celebrations” song when his arrest was announced, cheering and clapping at what they see as a success for law enforcement. Yoon’s supporters, however, were dismayed. “We are very upset and angry. The rule of law has broken down,” one of them told the BBC.
Rawr
Article URL : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg45zqz225vo