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.
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