South Korean investigators left the official residence of impeached South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol after a near-six-hour standoff, during which he defied their attempt to detain him. It is the latest confrontation in a political crisis that has paralyzed South Korean politics and seen two heads of state impeached in under a month.
The country’s anti-corruption agency said it withdrew its investigators after the presidential security service blocked them from entering Yoon’s residence for hours due to concerns about their safety.
The agency said its outnumbered investigators had several scuffles with presidential security forces and expressed “serious regret about the attitude of the suspect, who did not comply with the legal process.”
Photo: Reuters
The South Korean National Police Agency said it planned to investigate the chief and deputy chiefs of the presidential security service on suspicion of obstructing official duty and summoned them for questioning today.
Yoon has defied investigators’ attempts to question him for weeks. A Seoul court issued a warrant for Yoon’s detention on Tuesday, but enforcing it is complicated as long as he remains in his official residence.
Yoon’s lawyers, who filed a challenge to the warrant on Thursday, say it cannot be enforced at his residence due to a law that protects locations potentially linked to military secrets from search without the consent of the person in charge.
The office said it would discuss further actions, but did not immediately say whether it would make another attempt to detain Yoon. The warrant for his detention is valid for one week.
Yoon’s lawyers have also said that the South Korean Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military investigators, lacks the authority to investigate rebellion charges.
Police officers do not have the legal authority to assist in detaining Yoon and could face arrest by either the “presidential security service or any citizens,” they said.
If investigators manage to detain Yoon, they would likely ask a court for permission to make a formal arrest. Otherwise, he would be released after 48 hours.
Liberal opposition Democratic Party floor leader Park Chan-dae called the anti-corruption agency’s withdrawal regrettable and urged the agency to make another attempt to detain Yoon yesterday.
Kwon Young-se, who heads the emergency leadership committee of Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, called the agency’s effort to detain Yoon “highly unfair and exceedingly improper,” saying that there is no risk of Yoon attempting to flee or to destroy evidence.
Thousands of police officers gathered at Yoon’s residence yesterday, forming a perimeter around a growing group of pro-Yoon protesters who braved freezing temperatures for hours, waving South Korean and US flags while chanting slogans vowing to protect him.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS