When about 100 criminal investigators and police entered a hilly complex in central Seoul Friday morning, they attempted to do something that had never been done before in South Korea: arrest a sitting president.
First, they managed to cross two roadblocks formed by parked vehicles and people. Then, when they arrived within 200 meters of the building where President Yoon Suk Yeol was apparently hiding, they found themselves face to face with an even more formidable barrier: 10 buses and cars as well as 200 elite soldiers and bodyguards belonging to Mr. Yoon’s Presidential Security Service. Small scuffles broke out as investigators tried in vain to break through and serve a court-issued arrest warrant to take Mr. Yoon away.
Three prosecutors were allowed to approach the building. But there, Mr. Yoon’s lawyers told them they could not execute the warrant because it had been issued “illegally,” according to the officials who briefed the media on what had happened at inside the enclosure.
Outnumbered, the 100 officials withdrew after five and a half hours of clashes.
“This is deeply regrettable,” the Senior Officials Corruption Investigation Bureau, the independent government agency that carried out the attack on the presidential compound on Friday, said in a statement. It accuses Mr Yoon – who has already been suspended from office after being impeached by Parliament last month – of refusing to honor a court-issued arrest warrant. “We will discuss what our next step should be.”
The failure to bring in a deeply unpopular president has compounded a growing sense of powerlessness among South Koreans, exacerbated by the country’s sharply polarized politics. The nation appears distraught and distracted by infighting at a time when it faces major challenges at home and on the international stage.
Uncertainty already reigns around its alliance with the United States as the unpredictable Donald J. Trump prepares to return to the White House. North Korea, Seoul’s decades-long foe, has sought to score propaganda points in the South’s political quagmire, with its state media reporting that its neighbor was in “paralysis of its state administration and a spiral of sociopolitical confusion.”
And, at home, Jeju Air airliner crash that killed 179 of the 181 people on board Sunday added to a list of challenges ranging from widespread strikes to rising household debt. On Thursday, the Ministry of Finance sharply revised its growth forecasts for 2025 downwards.
A Constitutional Court is deliberating whether to dismiss Mr. Yoon, who was indicted on December 14 by the National Assembly. This came after he abruptly declared martial law 11 days earlier, sparking national outrage and calls for his ouster.
On Friday, the embattled Mr. Yoon vowed to fight his way back to power during the Constitutional Court trial and showed he had no intention of voluntarily submitting to criminal investigations. Mr. Yoon is accused of committing insurrection by sending armed troops to the National Assembly during his brief military tenure.
By refusing to honor the mandate, Mr. Yoon “kept adding new reasons why he should be removed from office by impeachment,” said Lim Ji-bong, a law professor at Sogang University. from Seoul.
“He may think he survived today, but what he did today would not go down well with the Constitutional Court judges and the judges who would ultimately try his insurrection case . »
Mr. Yoon is not the first South Korean politician to defy court warrants to arrest them. In 1995, prosecutors wanted to question former military dictator Chun Doo-hwan on charges of insurrection and mutiny stemming from his role in the 1979 coup and the massacre of protesters the following year. He defied the summons and headed for his southern hometown, followed by a crowd of supporters.
Prosecutors pursued him there. After a nighttime standoff, Mr. Chun surrendered.
But unlike Mr. Yoon, Mr. Chun was not in office when he was charged with insurrection. Mr. Yoon, although suspended, is still guarded with the full support of his Presidential Security Service, a government agency that hires teams of elite bodyguards and counterterrorism experts selected from the police, military and other government services.
“People who saw him relying on his bodyguards as a shield against his legal troubles will see him as a coward,” Mr Lim said.
Investigators have warned they will charge the presidential bodyguards with obstruction of justice.
“We will do everything possible to ensure the security of the object of our service in accordance with the laws and principles,” the Presidential Security Service said in a statement.
Public surveys showed that a majority of South Koreans wanted Mr. Yoon ousted and punished for insurrection. But his ruling party, opposed to his indictment, denounced attempts to keep him in detention.
Mr Yoon also has die-hard supporters – mainly among older South Koreans. Thousands of his supporters have been camped on the sidewalk for days, chanting: “Let’s protect Yoon Suk Yeol!”
In a message delivered on New Year’s Day, Mr. Yoon called them “citizens who love freedom and democracy” and thanked them for braving the cold to show their support on the street near his home.
“I will fight with you to the end to save this country,” Mr. Yoon said.
When the officials retreated from Mr. Yoon’s compound, they shouted, “We won!” »
Protesters calling for Mr. Yoon’s arrest began gathering again on Friday, marching near Mr. Yoon’s residence and shouting “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol!” They, along with the country’s opposition parties, expressed fury over the failure to arrest Mr. Yoon, calling his presidential security services “accomplices” in an insurrection.
“I’m so angry,” said Lee Ye-seul, 19, a student at Seoul University. “I will speak until he is impeached and those involved in the insurrection are punished.”
For Mr. Yoon’s supporters outside his residence, the security services were the last line of defense to save Mr. Yoon.
“The presidential guard should throw grenades if necessary to prevent them from approaching the president,” said Lee Young-jin, 65.
But Mr. Yoon’s tactic of stoking political divisions to avoid his legal troubles is having a bad effect on South Korea, said Ahn Byong-jin, a political science professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
This “exposed South Korea’s weaknesses as a democracy,” he said.
