South Korean anti-corruption investigators on Tuesday await a new court-issued arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose unsuccessful attempt to impose martial law plunged the nation into chaos.
Yoon has refused questioning three times over a bungled martial law decree last month which plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades.
Anti-graft officials are seeking a new warrant from the same court that issued the first order, but Yoon has remained holed up in his residence, surrounded by hundreds of guards preventing his detention.
“The Joint Investigation Headquarters today (Monday) refiled a warrant with the Seoul Western District Court to extend the arrest warrant for defendant Yoon,” the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) said in a statement on Monday.
“Details regarding the validity period cannot be disclosed”, the CIO added after the initial seven-day warrant expired.
If investigators can detain Yoon, he would become the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested.
There was no comment by investigators or the Seoul court on the new warrant being approved by Tuesday afternoon.
However, CIO Deputy Director Lee Jae-Seung told reporters earlier on Tuesday that the likelihood the court would not grant an extension was “very low”.
Yoon is being investigated on charges of insurrection and, if formally arrested and convicted, faces prison or, at worst, the death penalty.
His lawyers repeatedly said the initial warrant was “unlawful”, pledging to take further legal action against it.
Yoon’s lawyers have argued that the CIO lacks the authority to investigate, maintaining that insurrection is not included in the list of offenses it can probe.
But the likelihood for the reissued warrant to be accepted was “quite high”, said Yun Bok-Nam, president of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, who is not involved in the investigation.
He noted however that it may take longer than expected for the warrant to be issued again.
“In the previous instance, it took quite a long time — almost a day and a half,” Yun told reporters.
The CIO is a relatively new force nearly four years old with fewer than 100 staff yet to prosecute a single case.
“Naturally, they have no prior experience with arrests, let alone something as significant as arresting the president,” Yun said.
“The cooperation of the police is essential”, he added, through the Joint Investigation Headquarters umbrella under which both forces are currently working together.
The country’s opposition Democratic Party said on Monday that it would submit a legal complaint against Acting President Choi Sang-mok for “dereliction of duty”, after it asked him to intervene in the case and he did not.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court has slated January 14 to commence Yoon’s impeachment trial, which would proceed in his absence if he does not attend.
Local media reported that the suspended leader is likely to appear on the trial’s opening day, but Yoon’s lawyer told AFP that his appearance on that date was still “undecided”.
The court has up to 180 days to determine whether to dismiss Yoon as president or restore his powers.
Former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye never appeared for their impeachment trials in 2004 and 2016-2017 respectively.
Investigators struggled to arrest Yoon because of a sizeable force of guards massed at his home to protect him.
His presidential security service has similarly refused to budge during a tense six-hour standoff at his residence on Friday, forcing investigators into beating a retreat.
