South Korean prosecutors indicted and detained President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of leading an insurrection when he briefly imposed martial law last month. The indictment comes 54 days after Yoon’s short-lived Dec. 3 martial law decree that plunged the country into political turmoil. He will face his first trial while remaining in custody for up to six months.
The prosecution’s special investigative team said on Jan. 26 that they received the case from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), who had previously led the investigation into the martial law incident.
“Before deciding on whether to file an indictment, we determined that additional investigations, including an in-person interrogation of the defendant, were necessary, and requested an extension of the detention period to the Seoul Central District Court on Jan. 23 and 25,” the team said.
“But the court denied these requests twice for reasons that were difficult to comprehend, so we proceeded to indict and detain the defendant on charges of leading an insurrection before the initial detention period expired.”
Yoon is the first president in Korean history to be indicted while still in office. The opposition-dominated National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against Yoon last month, and he has since been suspended from office and arrested.
