Chief of Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials warns that anyone blocking arrest can be prosecuted.
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol will be arrested before a warrant issued over his short-lived declaration of martial law expires next week, the country’s chief anticorruption investigator has said.
Oh Dong-woon, the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, told reporters on Wednesday that the arrest warrant against Yoon would be executed “within the valid period”, the last day of which is Monday.
“We aim for a smooth process without major disturbances, but we are also coordinating to mobilise police and personnel in preparation,” Oh told reporters at the government complex in Gwacheon, south of Seoul.
Oh warned that anyone seeking to block Yoon’s arrest could be prosecuted.
“We consider actions such as setting up various barricades and locking iron gates to resist the execution of our arrest warrant as obstruction of official duties,” he said.
Speculation about when and how authorities would take Yoon into custody has swirled since the country’s Joint Investigation Headquarters sought a warrant to arrest Yoon, which a Seoul court granted on Tuesday.
Yoon’s security detail previously blocked investigators from executing several search warrants directed at the president, and local media have suggested that authorities would be unlikely to forcibly detain the embattled leader without coordinating it with his bodyguards.
If arrested, Yoon would be the first sitting president taken into custody in South Korean history.
He is facing criminal charges of abuse of power and insurrection, a crime punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, over his brief imposition of martial law on December 3, which plunged South Korea into its biggest political crisis in decades.
Yoon’s legal team has argued that the warrant is “illegal and invalid” as investigators do not have the authority to investigate the president for insurrection.
Yoon, who served as the nation’s top prosecutor before entering politics, has been suspended from his duties since December 14, when the National Assembly voted 204-85 for his impeachment.
Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok has served as acting president since Friday, when the legislature voted to impeach Yoon’s initial successor, Han Duck-soo, over his refusal to immediately appoint three justices to the country’s Constitutional Court.
The court is deliberating whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment or restore his presidential authority, a process that could take up to six months.
Choi on Tuesday approved the appointment for two justices nominated by the parliament, leaving just one vacancy on the bench.
At least six justices on the nine-member court must approve Yoon’s impeachment to remove him from office.
Yoon has defended his brief martial law decree as legal and necessary, citing the threat of “anti-state forces” and obstructionism by his opposition rivals.
