By Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is scheduled to attend a Constitutional Court hearing on his impeachment on Tuesday, where the detained leader could get a chance to argue his case or answer questions about his short-lived martial law push.
Yoon has been in jail since last week under a separate criminal investigation into whether he led a rebellion calling for martial law in early December, which shocked the nation and was overturned by parliament within hours.
His lawyers said Yoon will appear before the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, which is considering an impeachment petition accusing him of violating a constitutional duty. The judges will decide whether to permanently remove him from duty or reinstate him.
Seok Dong-hyeon, a lawyer advising Yoon, said the team would do its best to help the president “make the necessary statements.”
Yoon may get a chance to speak in court and may be questioned by a Constitutional Court judge, a court spokesman said on Tuesday.
Yoon’s decision to attend the impeachment hearing contrasts with his staunch resistance to the criminal proceedings against him where he has refused to answer investigators’ calls or attend questioning.
Yoon’s legal team denied that he was the mastermind of the riot, a crime punishable in South Korea by life in prison or even technically the death penalty.
When oral arguments began in the impeachment hearing last week, Yoon’s lawyers said the impeachment was a political attack on the president by opposition parties abusing their parliamentary majority and had nothing to do with preserving constitutional order.
The main opposition Democratic Party, joined by minority parties and also 12 members of Yoon’s People Power Party, voted by a two-thirds majority to impeach Yoon on December 14.
Security was beefed up at the Constitutional Court in central Seoul, after a mob of angry Yoon supporters stormed a district court that issued an order to extend his detention early Sunday.
Dozens of police buses were lined up bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street outside the court to restrict access to the premises several hours before the hearing was scheduled to start at 2pm (0500 GMT).
Yoon was expected to be taken away from the Seoul Detention Center, where he is being held, by corrections vehicles accompanied by a presidential security procession.
