The Democratic Party of Korea accused the Presidential Security Office of blocking the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials’ attempt to detain President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday, calling for the arrest of the president’s guards.
“Anyone standing in the way of arresting Yoon should be immediately arrested as offender of obstruction of justice,” said Rep. Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea.
“The chief, the deputy chief and other officials of the presidential security service should be treated as accomplices and held liable regardless of their ranks, if they interfere with the execution of the arrest warrant against Yoon,” Park said.
The remarks came as part of backlash from the Democratic Party over the CIO’s failed efforts to carry out the warrant for Yoon’s arrest.
Park called on the CIO to “arrest Yoon, the leader of the insurrection ring, as promptly as possible.” The Democratic Party has characterized Yoon’s short-lived martial declaration on Dec. 3 as insurrection.
Park said the CIO should make arresting Yoon, who was impeached in a National Assembly vote last month, its top priority.
Park said the only way South Korea can “rise from the turmoil” was Yoon’s arrest. “There is only one thing that the CIO ought to fear, and that is the South Korean people,” he said.
The CIO called off its efforts to execute the arrest warrant against Yoon Friday afternoon after hourslong standoff with the president’s guards outside the presidential residence in Yongsan, a central Seoul district.
The Presidential Security Office warned legal action against the CIO saying their personnel forcing their way into the guarded presidential compound and classified facilities without permission was “illegal.”
The ruling People Power Party suggested that Yoon’s arrest warrant had been issued on legally erroneous grounds.
The Seoul court judge wrote in Yoon’s arrest warrant that parts of the criminal proceedings laws, which restrict law enforcement access to confidential places such as the presidential compound, were not applied in issuing the warrant earlier this week.
Rep. Kwon Young-se, the interim chair of the People Power Party, told reporters the warrant against the president was “likely invalid.” “Laws cannot be selectively applied. Our justice systems should enforce laws as written,” he said.
Kwon also questioned the court’s decision to approve the arrest warrant request by the CIO, which does not have the authority to investigate the crime of insurrection.
The CIO is a Democratic Party-led creation that launched four years ago under the Moon Jae-in administration with the aim of setting up a body separate from prosecutors to investigate crimes by high-ranking public officials.
arin@heraldcorp.com
