South Korea’s Yoon faces second arrest attempt in fortified compound

(Reuters)་

SEOUL, Jan 8 – South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a new and potentially more robust attempt to arrest him for insurrection after a top investigator vowed to do whatever it takes to break a security blockade and take in the impeached leader.

Protesters supporting and opposing the embattled Yoon braved freezing temperatures to stage rallies on the streets around the presidential compound on Wednesday after a court re-issued a warrant on Tuesday to arrest him.

The Presidential Security Service (PSS) has been fortifying the compound this week with barbed wire and barricades using buses to block access to the residence, a hillside villa in an upscale district known as Korea’s Beverly Hills.

Yoon is under criminal investigation for insurrection over his failed attempt to impose martial law on Dec. 3, a decision that stunned South Korea and prompted the first arrest warrant for a sitting president.

He also faces an impeachment trial in the Constitutional Court.

On Wednesday, one of Yoon’s lawyers, said the president could not accept the execution of the arrest warrant because it was issued by a court in the wrong jurisdiction and the CIO had no authority to investigate the incumbent leader.

Yoon Kap-keun, the lawyer, also denied suggestions by some members of parliament that Yoon had fled the official residence, saying he had met the president there on Tuesday. He said they were “malicious” rumours intended to slander Yoon.