South Korea’s president is detained for questioning

Presidential bodyguards, below, gather at the main entrance of the official residence, right, of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s impeached president, in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. Criminal investigators armed with a court-issued warrant began a second, much-anticipated operation early Wednesday to detain Yoon for questioning in connection with insurrection charges that stem from his short-lived imposition of martial law last month. (Jun Michael Park/The New York Times)

SEOUL, South Korea — President Yoon Suk Yeol became the first sitting South Korean leader to be detained for questioning on criminal charges Wednesday, striking a deal with massed law enforcement officials and ending a weekslong standoff.

Yoon’s security guards successfully blocked the investigators from detaining him Jan. 3, when they made their first attempt to serve a court-issued detention warrant. Since then, the country has been gripped by fears that a violent clash might occur if both sides refused to back down.

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But when the investigators returned Wednesday with far more police officers, some of them carrying ladders to scale barricades, Yoon’s bodyguards put up no obvious resistance.

Yoon will now face questioning from officials investigating his declaration of martial law Dec. 3. The investigators can now question him for 48 hours and then could apply for a separate court warrant to formally arrest him.

In a video message released shortly after his detention, Yoon said he agreed to subject himself to questioning in order to prevent a “bloody” clash between his bodyguards and police. But he called the investigation and warrant to detain him illegal.

The opposition-led National Assembly raced to vote down Yoon’s martial law decree last month, and has since accused him of committing insurrection by sending armed troops into the Assembly to seize the legislature and to detain his political enemies.

At the same time as the criminal investigation, the country’s Constitutional Court is deliberating whether the Assembly’s vote Dec. 14 to impeach Yoon was legitimate and whether he should be formally removed from office.

Police buses started massing before dawn Wednesday outside the hilltop presidential compound where Yoon has been holed up since his impeachment. He was the first South Korean leader to place his country under military rule since the country began democratizing in the late 1980s.

Investigators and police officers gathered at the main gate of Yoon’s residence carrying ladders to get over barricades of buses that blocked the road. They reached the entrance to Yoon’s residence, where they held discussions with the president’s security guards and lawyers.

Around 8:30 a.m., Seok Dong-hyeon, a lawyer who ​serves as Yoon’s spokesperson, posted on Facebook that the president had not yet been arrested and that his legal team was negotiating with investigators over the possibility of Yoon voluntarily submitting himself for questioning.

The investigators have been braced for a repeat of the standoff that occurred Jan. 3, when they first visited Yoon’s residence to serve a detention warrant. Then, they were outnumbered by presidential security agents and had to beat an embarrassing retreat after a standoff that lasted 5 1/2 hours.

On Wednesday morning, with Yoon’s lawyers, lawmakers from his party and personnel from the presidential security service standing outside the compound gates, it appeared that he and his supporters were gearing up to resist the renewed effort for his detention. Live footage of the street leading up to his compound in the morning showed a tense standoff in below-freezing temperatures, with some shoving and physical struggles at one point.

Since the first attempt to detain Yoon, his security guards had fortified the compound by deploying more buses and razor wire to block gates and walls. Yoon has vowed to “fight to the end” to return to office and said he would not surrender to a court warrant that he considers illegal.

South Korea’s acting president, Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, warned government agencies involved in the standoff against violence.

“All the people and the international community are watching this,” he said in a statement. “We cannot tolerate physical violence for any purposes because it will irreparably damage the trust of the people and our international reputation.”

The effort to take in Yoon and force him to answer to accusations of insurrection is the first time in South Korean history that authorities have tried to detain a sitting president.

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