The screen shows footage of South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol delivering a speech to the nation at Seoul Station in Seoul, South Korea on December 7, 2024.
Jung Sung-joon | Getty Images News | Getty Images
South Korea’s joint investigative agency has requested an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol over his imposition of brief martial law earlier this month, an official said on Monday.
Mr Yoon has failed to respond to multiple summonses from police and the Office for the Investigation of Senior Officials’ Corruption, which is jointly investigating whether the martial law he declared on December 3 amounted to rebellion.
This is the first time South Korea has sought an arrest warrant against a sitting president.
The Seoul court will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant based on the request.
Insurrection is one of the few charges against which South Korea’s president does not have immunity.
Yoon Kab-keun, a lawyer for the suspended president, told Yonhap news agency that the anti-corruption agency had no authority to investigate the rebellion accusations.
He did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Mr Yoon was impeached by parliament earlier this month over his decision to briefly impose martial law and subsequently had his presidential powers suspended.
Masked martial law troops armed with rifles, body armor and night vision equipment entered parliament and confronted staff who opposed them with fire extinguishers.
The decree lasted only a few hours until parliament voted it down and Mr Yoon backed down.
The move shocked the country, which has been a democracy since the 1980s, and caused international alarm among allies such as the United States and trading partners of Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
The Constitutional Court is considering whether to reinstate Yoon or permanently remove him from office. It has 180 days to make a decision.
The court held its first preliminary hearing on Friday, and a request by Yin’s lawyers to postpone the proceedings to better prepare was rejected. The court said it would act quickly.
The next hearing will be held on January 3.
