South Korea’s anti-corruption agency is recommending sedition charges against Yoon | Politics News
The Office of Corruption Investigation for Senior Officials says the president sought to ‘undermine the constitutional order’.
South Korea’s anti-corruption agency has recommended that President Yoon Suk-yeol be charged with rebellion and abuse of power following an investigation into the impeached leader’s short-lived declaration of a state of emergency.
The Office of Corruption Investigation for Senior Officials (CIO) said on Thursday that it had asked prosecutors to press charges after finding that Yoon had suspended civil authority with “the intent to exclude state authority or disrupt constitutional order”.
After the CIO hands over the case, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office will have 11 days to decide whether to charge Yoon and send him to trial.
Yoon, who was suspended from his duties following the December 14 impeachment vote by the National Assembly, was arrested at his residence in Seoul last week after refusing repeated calls to appear for questioning.
His arrest marked the first time in South Korea’s history that a sitting president had been detained.
Yoon’s lawyers argued that the CIO, established in 2021 under Moon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in, had no authority to investigate the president for sedition and that his arrest was illegal.
Under South Korean law, sedition is one of the few crimes for which the president does not enjoy immunity.
The offense is punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, although the East Asian country has a long-standing moratorium on executions.
Yoon’s political fate is being considered separately by the Constitutional Court, which has 180 days to decide whether to uphold his impeachment or restore his presidential powers.
During his first appearance before the nine-judge court on Tuesday, Yoon denied ordering soldiers to forcefully remove lawmakers from the National Assembly so they would not be able to vote to overturn his short martial law decree.
Yoon told the court that lawmakers could have gathered elsewhere to overturn his Dec. 3 decree, which he rescinded within hours of the National Assembly’s unanimous vote.
Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok has served as the country’s acting president since Dec. 27, when lawmakers impeached Yoon’s original successor, Han Duck-soo, for refusing to immediately fill three vacancies on the Constitutional Court.
