South Korean President Yoon remains in detention for time being

Soo-Hyang Choi, Bloomberg News on Jan 16, 2025

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will remain in detention for the time being over his ill-fated martial law declaration after a court rejected his request to be released following his arrest earlier this week.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials is widely expected to seek a fresh warrant later Friday that would allow investigators to detain Yoon for up to 20 days after the expiration of the initial 48-hour detention period.

Yoon’s earlier demand to be released was turned down by the Seoul Central District Court, one of his lawyers, Seok Dong-hyeon, said early Friday. Seok said Yoon would not appear for questioning by investigators during the day. If court officials reject the fresh warrant request, the embattled president will be released.

Extending the detention period would give investigators more time to try to question Yoon and demonstrate that they have the legitimacy to execute their probe into Yoon on charges of insurrection. The president has repeatedly questioned the validity of the CIO’s investigation and has refused to answer questions.

“Of course we respect the court decision but it’s regrettable that we could not persuade it on not only the ‘illegality’ but also the ‘injustice’ and ‘inappropriateness’ of the CIO’s arrest of a sitting president on insurrection allegations even by violating the constitution and law,” Seok said in a text message to reporters following the rejection of Yoon’s request.

As the probe and the separate impeachment proceedings continue, an opinion poll Friday showed support edging up for Yoon’s party.

Yoon shocked the nation and the world by briefly imposing martial law in early December, plunging South Korea into its worst constitutional crisis in decades. He was suspended from his duties after the National Assembly passed a motion to impeach him on Dec. 14.

The Constitutional Court is now deliberating whether to uphold the parliament’s decision and remove him from office. A ruling in favor of impeachment will trigger a presidential election within 60 days.

Yoon was arrested Wednesday when investigators backed by thousands of police officers made their second attempt to bring him into custody for questioning over the martial law decree. The impeached president repeatedly defied earlier summons to appear for questioning.

A former star prosecutor, Yoon has been drawing on his own experience to block and delay efforts to investigate him. He was one of the prosecutors who led the probe into former President Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in 2017 and later imprisoned.

Slowing down progress in the investigation and an impeachment trial may buy time for the ruling party to rebuild support should an election be precipitated by the constitutional crisis.

The support rate for Yoon’s People Power Party rose to 39% in a weekly poll released by Gallup Korea on Friday, up 5 percentage points from the previous survey. That’s higher than the support rate of 36% for the opposition Democratic Party which has been leading the impeachment campaign against Yoon.

Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung still has a clear lead among possible candidates to become the next president in an election. But his support edged down for a second straight week to 31% from 32%.

The latest survey showed 57% respondents support Yoon’s impeachment, compared with 36% who said they were against the campaign. The latest poll was conducted among 1,001 respondents across the country and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, Gallup Korea said.

Time is running against Lee. He faces the risk of being ruled out of any presidential election if a conviction over an election law violation is upheld in the coming months.