Investigators from police and the anti-corruption agency  (right side) confront security guards and lawyers (left side) for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol at the entrance of his official residence  on Wednesday.   Yonhap
Investigators from police and the anti-corruption agency (right side) confront security guards and lawyers (left side) for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol at the entrance of his official residence on Wednesday. Yonhap

The Presidential Security Service, which had previously resisted investigators' efforts to detain President Yoon Suk Yeol, stepped aside Wednesday morning, allowing police to arrest the president.

The move comes amid criticism that the agency has obstructed the execution of the warrant while guarding the embattled elected leader.

Founded in December 1963 by authoritarian ruler Park Chung-hee, the PSS has long been an agency devoted to the nation's most powerful person. It has served 10 South Korean heads of state, including Yoon.

Now led by a vice-ministerial figure, the organization of some 750 personnel includes nearly 500 presidential bodyguards. The guards protect incumbent and former presidents, presidents-elect, their spouses, as well as foreign leaders visiting South Korea and their spouses.

In the 1970s when Park, who was formerly an Army officer, was in power, the heads of the PSS were granted the authority to convene a meeting of Cabinet members for presidential security. All eight PSS leaders during the military junta's control were previously Army officers. Six of them were ministerial figures.

Since Yoon came to power in May 2022, presidential security has repeatedly become embroiled in controversies over the use of excessive force in protecting Yoon.

Presidential bodyguards previously drew ire for clasping their hands over protesters' mouths while dragging them out at events attended by Yoon.

Kang Sung-hee, then a lawmaker of the minor Progressive Party, was dragged out of an event hall for not letting go during a handshake with Yoon in January 2024. Soon afterward, at a commencement ceremony for the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Daejeon in February last year, a graduating student named Shin Min-gi was dragged out the same way for protesting a state budget cut to scientific research and development.

During the fallout from Yoon's martial law debacle, it was the Presidential Security Service that blocked police efforts to conduct a search and seizure at the presidential office. Police on Dec. 11 tried to serve a court warrant secure evidence related to the Cabinet meeting that preceded Yoon's martial law declaration. But Yoon's bodyguards refused to comply with the warrant, citing the possible breach of national security during the probe.

Weeks after Yoon's impeachment on Dec. 14, the PSS quickly put itself at the center of controversy after the joint probe team failed to access the presidential residence following a five-hour standoff. According to the CIO, its investigators in the Jan. 3 attempt were blocked by barricades of vehicles and armed bodyguards surrounding Yoon's residence.

Before the second warrant execution attempt Wednesday, the CIO, an independent agency of prosecutors leading the joint probe into Yoon's martial law declaration, warned the PSS of severe consequences in case personnel there resisted law enforcement's attempts to serve the court warrant. It said Yoon's bodyguards could be held criminally accountable and liable for damages, as well as becoming ineligible for the postretirement pension for public officials.

Police on Wednesday said they had been granted warrants to arrest the PSS vice head and acting chief Kim Sung-hoon as well as Lee Kwang-woo, a high-ranking official of the PSS who leads its bodyguard division. Both figures had already rejected police summons for questioning. As of press time, however, police have yet to serve the warrants to detain them, citing the need for presidential security during Yoon's detention for questioning.

At a parliamentary hearing in November, Kim described Yoon as the most "honest, sincere and genuine president" he has ever served, out of seven heads of state he worked with.

Kim has been the acting head of the PSS since the prior chief, Park Jong-joon, resigned from his post on Friday while complying with police summons.