The special prosecutor's team led by Cho Eun-seok, investigating the insurrection incident related to the 'Dec. 3 emergency martial law', has requested an arrest warrant for former President Yoon Suk-yeol.
On this day, Park Ji-young, the special prosecutor responsible for public relations, stated at 5:20 p.m. that an arrest warrant was submitted to the Seoul Central District Court against former President Yoon for abuse of power, preparation of false public documents, and obstruction of special official duties.
Park noted, "I only mentioned the three representative charges," and did not reveal specific details regarding the charges. There was also no detailed explanation about the reasons deemed necessary for the arrest.
The special prosecutor's team seems to have judged that despite the gravity of the charges against former President Yoon, he completely denied them during two face-to-face investigations, raising concerns about evidence destruction, such as colluding with accomplices.
It is believed that the detention of accomplices, including former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun, former Army Counterintelligence Command Chief Yeo In-hyung, and former Military Intelligence Command Chief Moon Sang-ho, who are suspected of participating in the insurrection under Yoon's orders, also influenced the situation.
Former President Yoon is accused of mobilizing the Presidential Security Service to block the execution of an arrest warrant by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials on Jan. 3 of this year.
He is also suspected of ordering the Security Service to delete information related to the encrypted communication devices of former Army Special Warfare Command Chief Kwak Jong-kun, former Capital Defense Command Chief Lee Jin-woo, and former Command Chief Yeo, four days after the martial law declaration on Dec. 7 of last year.
The special prosecutor's team additionally applied charges claiming that former President Yoon obstructed the exercise of the review rights of cabinet members, such as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Joo-ho, who were not notified and were called only to fill the quorum (11 members) at the cabinet meeting held just before the martial law declaration.
He was also charged with additionally preparing a false martial law declaration document to remedy the legal flaws of the initial martial law declaration.
However, the special prosecution excluded allegations of foreign exchange for directing the military drone operations command to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles in Pyongyang to build a justification for the martial law declaration from the arrest warrant.
Park explained, "The foreign exchange investigation is ongoing, and there is still a lot of material left to investigate, so it was not included in the criminal facts."