South Korean investigators have called off an attempt to arrest suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol after a dramatic six-hour standoff with the security team outside his home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve determined that the arrest is practically impossible,\u201d said the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which has been investigating Yoon\u2019s short-lived martial law declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext steps will be decided after review,\u201d the CIO said, adding that Yoon\u2019s \u201crefusal of the legal process\u201d is \u201cdeeply regrettable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yoon\u2019s supporters, who have been camped out in front of the presidential residence for days, cheered in song and dance as the suspension was announced. \u201cWe won!\u201d they chanted.<\/p>\n
The CIO said that concern for the safety of the team on the ground was another factor in their decision to call off the attempted arrest.<\/p>\n
Investigators have until 6 January to arrest Yoon before the current warrant expires. They can, however, apply for a new warrant and try to detain him again.<\/p>\n
Since early morning, dozens of police vans lined the street outside Yoon\u2019s residence in central Seoul.<\/p>\n
At about 08:00 local time (23:00 GMT), an arrest team made up of police officers and CIO members marched towards the compound.<\/p>\n
This started out with a 20-strong team, but quickly multiplied to some 150 people.<\/p>\n
While about half of the arrest team was able to get inside, they were locked for hours in a standoff with security officers \u2013 who are still responsible for protecting Yoon, despite him being stripped of his powers \u2013 and a military unit responsible for protecting the city of Seoul.<\/p>\n
At one point the security team engaged in a \u201cconfrontation with the CIO at the presidential residence\u201d, an official with Seoul\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP.<\/p>\n
Before the attempt was stood down, Yoon\u2019s security team told the news agency they had been \u201cin negotiation\u201d with the investigators who sought to access the president.<\/p>\n
Yoon\u2019s legal team was also seen entering the residence slightly past noon local time.<\/p>\n
His lawyer Yoon Gab-keun had earlier said they would take legal action over the arrest warrant, which they called \u201cillegal and invalid\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Seoul court issued the arrest warrant early this week, after Yoon ignored three summonses to appear for questioning over the past fortnight.<\/p>\n
On Friday, prosecutors also indicted on insurrection charges army chief Park An-su, who was named martial law commander during the brief declaration last month, and special forces commander Kwak Jong-geun, according to Seoul-based news outlet Yonhap.<\/p>\n
They are to face trial while in prison.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korean investigators have called off an attempt to arrest suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol after a dramatic six-hour standoff with the security team outside his home. \u201cWe\u2019ve determined that the arrest is practically impossible,\u201d said the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which has been investigating Yoon\u2019s short-lived martial law declaration. \u201cNext steps will be decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}