Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is back in custody over an independent investigation into his declaration of martial law last year. <\/p>\n
According to the independent counsel leading the probe, the Seoul Central District Court approved a warrant for Yoon\u2019s re-arrest early Thursday morning, because of concerns over the destruction of evidence. <\/p>\n
Yoon\u2019s shocking December declaration plunged South Korea into a constitutional crisis and was widely condemned as striking at the heart of the nation\u2019s democracy. He reversed course within six hours, after lawmakers forced their way into parliament and voted unanimously to block it. <\/p>\n
Yoon was detained in January on charges of leading an insurrection, becoming the first president in South Korean history to be arrested while in office. He was released in March after the Seoul court canceled his arrest warrant for technical reasons. <\/p>\n
In April, the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled to remove Yoon from office, calling his actions a \u201cgrave betrayal of the people\u2019s trust.\u201d <\/p>\n
He has since faced multiple criminal investigations. According to the independent counsel, Yoon is now facing charges including abuse of power and obstruction of official duties. <\/p>\n
In a leaked warrant request, the counsel alleged that Yoon declared martial law in an attempt to overcome political gridlock caused by the opposition party\u2019s majority in the National Assembly and its impeachment of several senior officials. <\/p>\n
He is accused of deploying troops to block lawmakers from entering the national assembly building to overturn the decree and of giving orders to \u201cbreak down the doors\u201d of parliament and \u201cdrag people out, even if it takes firing guns.\u201d Yoon\u2019s lawyers deny he ordered the use of firearms. <\/p>\n
The counsel also alleges that Yoon instructed his commander to prioritize the arrest of key political figures, including the then opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who is now the country\u2019s president. He is further accused of ordering the presidential security service to obscure communication records from secure phones used afte the martial law was lifted. <\/p>\n
In addition, Yoon is accused of obstructing warrant executions by the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) in December and January by mobilizing the presidential security detail and authorizing the use of force. <\/p>\n
Yoon\u2019s lawyers said the warrant request was \u201crushed and unjustified\u201d and called the investigation \u201cflawed and politically motivated.\u201d They said the independent counsel\u2019s questions during Yoon\u2019s investigation were only at a basic level regarding the allegations, and that the warrant request did not include any treason charges. <\/p>\n
They added that most individuals involved have already been detained and are standing trial, so all relevant evidence has been secured and there is no risk of evidence being destroyed. <\/p>\n
Independent counsel teams were established to investigate Yoon following his removal from office, and the election of Lee in a snap presidential election in June. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is back in custody over an independent investigation into his declaration of martial law last year. According to the independent counsel leading the probe, the Seoul Central District Court approved a warrant for Yoon\u2019s re-arrest early Thursday morning, because of concerns over the destruction of evidence. Yoon\u2019s shocking <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycapitalsnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}