Yoon Suk Yeol has become the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested by law enforcement agents, after his compound was finally breached on Wednesday by officials investigating his failed attempt to impose martial law.
Anti-corruption investigators launched a pre-dawn operation – their second attempt to arrest Mr Yoon – triggering almost a three-hour-long standoff with the president’s supports and security team.
Later on Wednesday hundreds of law enforcement officers entered the presidential residence in Seoul, and the agency declared he had been successfully detained.
Mr Yoon has been holed up in his Hannam-dong residence for weeks as he avoided a summons by the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) and vowed to “fight to the end”.
In a defiant video message filmed before he was escorted to the headquarters of the anti-corruption agency, Mr Yoon claimed he had decided to comply with the arrest warrant but that the “rule of law has completely collapsed in this country”.
The South Korean president threw the country into political turmoil after he declared martial law on 3 December, claiming that he was acting against an “anti-state” opposition that was using its legislative majority to thwart his agenda.
The anti-corruption agency is leading a joint investigation with the police and military to determine whether Mr Yoon’s declaration of martial law constitutes an attempted insurrection.
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