With the embattled leader locked up in his home surrounded by devoted security officers, South Korean investigators attempting to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol have less than 24 hours before their warrant expires on Monday.
Before a failed arrest attempt last month, when hundreds of his security guards blocked investigators attempting to capture him over a botched martial law decree, the former top prosecutor adamantly refused to be questioned three times.
The Yonhap news agency stated that they were thinking about making another effort, although it was unclear after the tense, hours-long standoff whether detectives will try to make their move again before the warrant expires at the end of Monday (1500 GMT).
Yoon faces prison or, at worst, the death penalty if arrested after briefly suspending civilian rule and plunging South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades, but both he and his supporters have remained defiant.
“The Presidential Security Service will protect the President, and we will protect the Presidential Security Service till midnight,” said Kim Soo-yong, 62, one of the protest organisers.
“If they get another warrant, we will come again.”
Dozens of Yoon’s People Power Party lawmakers gathered in front of his presidential mansion in the early morning fog.
As scores of protesters, both pro and anti-Yoon, braved below-freezing temperatures after spending the night in camp, police rushed to block highways in preparation for another day of demonstrations.
“I’ve been here longer than the CIO (Corruption Investigation Office) now. It doesn’t make sense why they can’t do it. They need to arrest him immediately,” anti-Yoon protest organiser Kim Ah-young, in her 30s, said.
Investigators would need to file for a new warrant if the current seven-day one expires, and it would probably be granted by a court of their choosing on the same grounds as the original one: that Yoon has refused to come forward for interrogation due to his martial law declaration.
Yoon’s attorneys have vowed to pursue additional legal action against the warrant, calling it “illegal” and “unlawful” on numerous occasions.
On Sunday, the chief of Yoon’s presidential security agency similarly declared that he would not permit the suspended president to be arrested by investigators.
But the vibrant East Asian democracy will find itself in uncharted territory either way — its sitting president will have been arrested, or he would have evaded court-ordered detention.
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