Court extends arrest warrant for South Korean president

Author:
Olha Bereziuk
Date:

The Seoul Western District Court has extended the arrest warrant for South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol in connection with his imposition of martial law.

Yonhap writes about this.

The court granted the investigatorsʼ request after the initial warrant expired on Monday.

An attempt to execute the warrant last Friday failed after presidential security personnel blocked investigators from accessing Yoon Seok Yeolʼs official residence in central Seoul.

Although investigators are not disclosing the duration of the new warrant, it is believed to last longer than the usual seven days, given the expected difficulty in apprehending Yoon.

What preceded

South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol declared martial law in the country on the night of December 3-4 to “protect the constitutional order” — the first time since the 1980s. The reason was that the opposition Democratic Party of South Korea, which has a majority in parliament, rejected the government’s budget proposal and decided to impeach the state auditor and the attorney general.

In total, martial law lasted about six hours, but it caused a sharp internal crisis — now the president is being called to resign. On December 8, he was informed of suspicion of treason and abuse of power and banned from traveling abroad.

On December 14, the South Korean parliament supported a bill to impeach President Yun Seok Yeol.

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