Anchor: A Seoul court has announced it will review a request for a pretrial detention warrant for former President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, as requested by the special prosecutor investigating the December 3 martial law declaration. Yoon is expected to attend the hearing in person.
Choi You Sun reports.
Report: The Seoul Central District Court said Monday that it will hold a hearing at 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday to review a request for a pretrial detention warrant for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, filed by the special counsel team investigating the December 3 martial law case.
The request, submitted by the team led by Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok, follows two rounds of questioning with the former president.
Yoon faces multiple charges, including abuse of power, obstruction of the exercise of rights, falsification of public documents, and obstruction of special public duty.
This comes about four months after a court canceled his previous detention order related to the same case.
Investigators suspect Yoon violated Cabinet members’ rights by summoning only a select group of ministers for a meeting to secure a quorum ahead of declaring martial law.
He is also accused of attempting to legitimize the decree by fabricating an official document and having then-Prime Minister Han Duck-soo sign it, and of obstructing law enforcement’s attempt to arrest him in January.
The special counsel team also cited Yoon’s alleged remark that secret service agents “shoot much better than police officers,” claiming he ordered them to visibly carry firearms during the arrest attempt.
Prosecutors further suspect that Yoon instructed the Presidential Security Service to delete data from secure phones used by military commanders involved in the incident, ahead of an insurrection probe.
However, the team did not include a charge of “offense of aiding foreign aggression,” despite suspicions that Yoon and then-Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun deployed drones to North Korea last October in a bid to provoke an inter-Korean armed clash to justify the decree.
Yoon has reportedly expressed his intent to attend the hearing in person to present his case.
The court is expected to announce its decision later that day or early the next morning.
