South Korea’s prosecutors charged President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday on allegations of advancing an insurrection with his short-lived imposition of martial law on December 3, the opposition party stated.
“The prosecution has decided to charge Yoon Suk Yeol, who is facing allegations of being an instigator of insurrection,” Democratic Party spokesman Han Min-soo reported in a press conference. “The punishment of the mastermind of insurrection now begins finally.”
Anti-corruption investigators last week suggested prosecution of the jailed Yoon, who was impeached by parliament and suspended from his duties over the incident.
Yoon’s lawyers had demanded the prosecutors urgently release him from illegal custody.
Under criminal probes, he has been in detention since becoming the first sitting president to be arrested on January 15.
Insurrection is one of the few criminal indictments from which a South Korean president does not have immunity. It is punishable by life imprisonment or death.
Yoon and his lawyers claimed at the Constitutional Court hearing last week in his impeachment trial that he never aimed to completely impose martial law but had only ordained the measures as a warning to break political deadlock.
The top court will decide whether to terminate Yoon from office or reinstate his presidential powers, with 180 days to decide.
South Korea’s opposition-led parliament impeached Yoon on December 14, marking him the second conservative president to be impeached in the country.
