South Korea’s prosecutors indicted suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday on charges of leading an insurrection with his short-lived imposition of martial law on Dec. 3, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The decision came after anti-corruption investigators last week recommended Yoon be formally charged.
A Seoul court rejected a second request Saturday to extend Yoon’s detention, putting pressure on prosecutors to quickly indict him.
Yoon was arrested earlier this month on insurrection charges, becoming the first sitting South Korean head of state to be detained in a criminal probe.
His martial law decree only lasted about six hours before it was voted down by lawmakers, but it still managed to plunge South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades.
The Seoul Central District Court on Saturday turned down a request for a detention extension, prosecutors said in a brief statement. This followed a ruling by the same court a day earlier when a judge stated it was “difficult to find sufficient grounds” to grant an extension.
Prosecutors had planned to keep the disgraced leader in custody until Feb. 6 for questioning before formally indicting him.
Yoon has refused to cooperate with the criminal probe, with his legal defense team arguing investigators lack legal authority.
The suspended president is also facing a separate hearing in the Constitutional Court which, if it upholds his impeachment, would officially remove him from office.
An election would then have to be held within 60 days.
