Around 2:50 a.m. local time on Sunday, the Seoul Western District Court issued a fresh arrest warrant against Yoon Suk-yeol, who has been impeached but remains the sitting president of South Korea. Yoon was already in detention; the new warrant allows the investigation team to lock him up for up to 20 days (until February 7). The main reason for issuing the arrest warrant was concern that Yoon might destroy evidence, according to local media. Yoon is being investigated on suspicion of insurrection and treason, the only crimes for which a sitting president can be prosecuted, following his declaration of martial law on December 3.
Despite showing up in a trial to deliver his one-sided argument about the illegitimacy of his arrest and to once again justify his declaration of martial law, Yoon failed to prevent the court from extending the period of his detention. Each court decision, in fact, has demonstrated that his statements are constitutionally baseless.
Yoon, 65, is the first sitting president to be detained under a criminal investigation in South Korea’s history. Meanwhile, the impeachment proceedings are unfolding on a separate track. If the Constitutional Court upholds his impeachment by the National Assembly in the coming weeks or months, Yoon will permanently be removed from office.
The investigation team of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) had to request a fresh arrest warrant to the court as it had only secured 48 hours to investigate Yoon after it successfully detained him on January 15. That was the CIO’s second attempt after it failed to arrest him on January 3 due to the unexpectedly aggressive impediments by Yoon’s security team.
The original arrest warrants were requested due to Yoon’s repeated refusal to appear for questioning. Although the investigation team succeeded in arresting him, Yoon did not answer any questions asked by the CIO’s prosecutors during the investigation on January 15, according to local media reports. In this context, the CIO has asked Yoon to appear for questioning again but Yoon has refused to do so, insisting (by his own account) that he has nothing more to say. According to local media, he exercised the right to remain silent throughout the investigation.
“The rule of law has completely collapsed in this country,” Yoon said in a released video that recorded him delivering remarks before the investigation team arrested him on January 15. He reiterated his stance that the arrest warrant and the investigation are illegal in the video.
And Yoon’s supporters took his message to heart, creating chaos that should have not occurred in a renowned democratic country.
After the court issued a fresh warrant on Sunday, Yoon supporters broke the gates and windows of the Seoul Western Court and intruded inside the building to protest directly against a judge who issued the warrant. Some of them tried to find the judge and trespassed into her office, which is located on the seventh floor, raising concerns that confidential documents related to trials and personal information about the judge may have been illegally obtained by pro-Yoon rioters.
According to local media reports, some police officers who were blocking the rioters from entering the building were beaten by the Yoon supporters, some of whom were carrying sticks and iron pipes. Some police officers were sent to the hospital due to head injuries; over 40 police were injured.
The estimated cost of the damage inflicted to the Seoul Western District Court is around 700 million won ($4.8 million), according to the head of the National Court Administration on Monday. He also called the riot a serious crime.
The storming of the court on January 19 was the moment when Yoon supporters became rioters. As such, it is reminiscent of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. four years ago.
The police have requested arrest warrants for 66 of the 90 rioters who were arrested on site. Of the 90 rioters, 46 are in their 20s and 30s. The police vowed to take them into custody first to carry out thorough investigations, implying those who were involved in the riot on Sunday will be held accountable to the fullest extent under the law.
The acting chief of police also opened the possibility of investigating far-right YouTubers who instigated the protesters to use violence against the police and officials in the Seoul Western District Court.
According to local media reports, multiple local reporters and producers who were covering Yoon’s arrest warrant at the Seoul Western District Court were also beaten up by Yoon supporters. Some protesters stole and damaged producers’ cameras. Some reporters and producers were surrounded and assaulted by pro-Yoon rioters, some of whom spit in the reporters’ faces and urged the crowd to kill them.
The local media outlets involved – KBS, MBC, and Yonhap News Agency – pledged to take necessary actions against those who used violence against their reporters. A total of 41 civilians were reported injured in the riot; it’s unclear how many of those were journalists.
The rioters also destroyed a vehicle belonging to the CIO prosecutors who attended the trial on Sunday. While the prosecutors were in a car, the mob shook the vehicle while surrounding it to block it from departing the area. According to local media, the prosecutors had to abandon the car.
The opposition parties condemned the violent situation and called it “intolerable.” The main opposition Democratic Party called the event a “riot” that infringed on the core legal system of the country.
Yoon’s defense team conveyed his remarks asking his supporters to deliver their message in a peaceful way. The ruling People Power Party (PPP) also appealed to the supporters, saying that using violence is not helpful for Yoon.
However, the question should be asked to the ruling party and Yoon in the wake of the unprecedented violent incident: Who is responsible for the riot?
While on the streets protesting against the National Assembly’s decision to impeach Yoon and the CIO’s investigations, Yoon supporters waved South Korean and American flags and chanted “Stop the Steal.” Despite the National Election Commission’s repeated explanation that there is no credibility to claims of elections being stolen or rigged, Yoon supporters and far-right extremists have consistently repeated baseless assertions and demands to investigate the NEC’s election system. Yoon himself raised questions on the security of the NEC’s election system in his address on December 12.
In this speech, he also clarified that the main opposition Democratic Party is the reason that he decided to declare martial law. According to Yoon, the opposition parties and the National Assembly are “anti-state” forces that have been impeding the president’s policies and statesmanship. In other words, Yoon is the country and anyone opposing what Yoon would like to do is an anti-state force for him and his supporters.
Yoon’s December 12 address, which lasted nearly 30 minutes, was a main catalyst fueling Yoon supporters’ furor, as he vowed to “fight to the end” even though he pledged not to avoid legal and political responsibility.
The ruling PPP also urged Yoon supporters toward violence.
Some 20 to 30 PPP lawmakers gathered near the presidential compound to impede the CIO’s execution of the arrest warrant on Yoon. Those lawmakers repeated the same remarks made by Yoon, calling the arrest warrant “illegal” and claiming that the CIO has no constitutional authority to investigate Yoon on insurrection charges (an argument repeatedly rejected by the court). A majority of the PPP lawmakers voted against the National Assembly bill calling for impeaching Yoon on December 14.
Yoon’s defense team has made similar remarks, claiming that the Seoul Western District Court, which issued the first arrest warrant on Yoon, is not a “court of competent jurisdiction” and the CIO has no legal authority to investigate Yoon for insurrection. In this context, Yoon’s lawyers requested the Seoul Central District Court to review the legitimacy of the arrest warrant on January 16, a day after he was arrested by the CIO at his presidential compound. However, the Seoul Central District Court, which Yoon’s lawyers and his supporters deemed to be a friendly court, dismissed the request, saying the arrest warrant issued by the Seoul Western District Court is “legal.”
With this decision, it has been demonstrated that Yoon and his lawyers’ consistent attack on the Seoul Western District Court and the CIO was baseless.
Yet in the eyes of the far-right extremists and Yoon supporters, anyone who disagrees with Yoon is a leftist and anti-state force. Thus the judge who issued the arrest warrant against Yoon has become a “leftist” judge; even the police is now an anti-state force controlled by a pro-China cabal, according to Yoon supporters and far-right extremists.
Such polarization has been aggravated under the Yoon era, given his propensity to use terms such as “leftist,” “anti-state,” and “pro-North Korea” forces. For him, every decision or policy he carries out is what strengthens the country’s “liberal democracy,” and anyone who opposes him is thus an enemy of the nation.
On January 19, South Korea’s legal system was damaged by pro-Yoon rioters who used violence against the police and intruded into the court building in the wake of the court’s decision to extend the arrest warrant on Yoon.
Given the chaos created already, it is possible that Yoon’s supporters may not accept the verdict of the Constitutional Court. Some may resort to violence again if court upholds the impeachment of Yoon in weeks or months.