SEOUL, South Korea — When around 100 criminal investigators and police officers entered a hilly compound in central Seoul on Friday morning, they tried to achieve something that has never been done before in South Korea: detain a sitting president.
First, they made it through two blockades formed by parked vehicles and people. Then, when they came within 650 feet of the building where President Yoon Suk Yeol was believed to be holed up, they came face to face with an even more formidable barrier: 10 buses and cars along with 200 elite soldiers and bodyguards belonging to Yoon’s Presidential Security Service. Small scuffles erupted as the investigators tried in vain to break through and serve a court-issued warrant to take Yoon away.
Three prosecutors were allowed to approach the building. But there, Yoon’s lawyers told them they could not serve the warrant because it was “illegally” issued, according to officials who briefed news media about what happened inside the compound.
Outnumbered, the 100 officials retreated after a 5 1/2-hour standoff.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, the independent government agency that led the raid into the presidential compound Friday, accused Yoon — who has already been suspended from office after being impeached by parliament last month — of refusing to honor a court-issued warrant. “We will discuss what our next step should be,” the agency said in a statement.
A Constitutional Court is deliberating whether to remove Yoon, who was impeached Dec. 14 by the National Assembly. That came after he abruptly declared martial law 11 days earlier, prompting national outrage and calls for his ouster.
On Friday, the besieged Yoon vowed to fight to return to office through the Constitutional Court trial and showed he had no intention of voluntarily subjecting himself to criminal investigations. Yoon faces accusations that he committed insurrection by sending armed troops into the National Assembly during his short-lived military rule.
The investigators warned that they would charge the presidential bodyguards with obstruction of justice.
“We will do everything we can to provide security for the object of our service according to laws and principles,” the Presidential Security Service said in a statement.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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