By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
SEOUL (Worthy News) – South Korean anti-corruption investigators have failed to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after a nearly six-hour standoff with his security team on Friday.
Early Saturday, it was unclear when and if they would try again to detain Yoon.
Witnesses said that on a frigid day in Seoul, a team from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), backed by some 2,700 police officers, surrounded Yoon’s residence in Seoul’s Yongsan district.
His security team blocked investigators from executing the arrest warrant for insurrection related to Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law a month ago.
With about a thousand protesters gathered outside his residence, the investigators called off their efforts at 1:30 p.m. local time due to safety concerns for on-site personnel.
“It was judged that it was virtually impossible to execute the arrest warrant due to the ongoing stand-off,” the CIO said in a statement.
The standoff plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in years.
WARNING POLICE
After suspending the arrest effort, Yoon’s legal team said the CIO had “no authority” to investigate the insurrection.
Regrettably, it had tried to execute an “illegal warrant” in a sensitive security area, the lawyers claimed.
The statement warned police against supporting the arrest effort.
Additionally, Yoon’s presidential office filed a criminal complaint against three broadcasters and YouTube video-sharing site channel owners
For “unauthorized filming” of the presidential residence as it was “a secured facility directly linked to national security.”
A former prosecutor, Yoon defied investigators’ attempts to question him for weeks.
The last time he left the residence was on December 12, when he went to the nearby presidential office to make a televised statement to the nation.
FIGHT CONTINUES
Yoon pledged to his viewers that he would fight efforts to oust him.
As the standoff unfolded this weekend, 74-year-old Pyeong In-su was holding U.S. and South Korean flags outside Yoon’s residence on Friday, saying police had to be stopped by “patriotic citizens.”
He hopes U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump will come to Yoon’s aid. “I hope after Trump’s inauguration he can use his influence to help our country get back on the right track,” he added, waving both flags with the message: “Let’s go together” in English and Korean.
While pro-Yoon groups criticize their opponents as being subservient to North Korea, they openly praise the United States.
They remind followers that the United States liberated Korea from Japanese colonial rule and defended it during the Korean War of 1950-53.
Yoon supporters have described America as “a divine” protector of democracy embedded in Christian values.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Austria’s fiercely anti-migration Freedom Party (FPO) was likely to appoint its first chancellor after being invited by the Alpine nation’s president to explore forming a government in what amounted to a political earthquake in this country of roughly 9 million people.
Despite political turmoil, South Korea rang in the New Year with a digital pledge to citizens aged 17 and over: They will soon be able to store their resident registration cards on their smartphones.
Family members faced more agony on Sunday after fighters of Hamas released a video of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since its October 2023 attack.
Christians in Islamic-ruled Sudan were recovering from their injuries on Thursday after Muslim fighters reportedly attacked a church service in the nation’s Al Jazirah state with 14 Christians.
Christians in Pakistan’s Punjab province are mourning Suleman Masih, a 25-year-old Christian farmer, who they say was “brutally murdered” by “Muslim landlords” on New Year’s Day.
South Korean anti-corruption investigators have failed to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after a nearly six-hour standoff with his security team on Friday.
A young boy who disappeared in northern Zimbabwe after wandering into a game park teeming with lions and elephants has miraculously survived five agonizing days alone in the jungle, Worthy News learned Saturday.