South Korean prosecutors yesterday indicted South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of leading an insurrection with his short-lived imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 last year, the main opposition party said.
The announcement came as North Korea yesterday said it tested a cruise missile system, its third known weapons display this year.
“The prosecution has decided to indict Yoon Suk-yeol, who is facing charges of being a ringleader of insurrection,” Democratic Party spokesman Han Min-soo told a news conference. “The punishment of the ringleader of insurrection now begins finally.”
Photo: AP
Anti-corruption investigators had recommended charging the jailed Yoon, who was impeached by parliament and suspended from his duties over the incident.
Yoon’s lawyers had urged the prosecutors to immediately release him from what they call illegal custody.
Under criminal investigation, he has been in custody since becoming the first sitting president to be arrested on Jan. 15.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency via Reuters
Insurrection is one of the few criminal charges from which a South Korean president does not have immunity. It is punishable by life imprisonment or death, although South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.
Yoon and his lawyers argued at a Constitutional Court hearing last week in his impeachment trial that he never intended to fully impose martial law, but had only meant the measures as a warning to break political deadlock.
In parallel with his criminal process, the top court would determine whether to remove Yoon from office or reinstate his presidential powers, with 180 days to decide.
South Korea’s opposition-led parliament impeached Yoon on Dec. 14, making him the second conservative president to be impeached in the country.
Yoon rescinded his martial law after about six hours after lawmakers from the main opposition party, confronting soldiers in parliament, voted down the decree.
Meanwhile, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed the test of sea-to-surface strategic cruise guided weapons on Saturday.
The term “strategic” implies the missiles are nuclear-capable.
KCNA said the missiles hit their targets after traveling 1,500km elliptical and figure-eight-shaped flight patterns, but that could not be independently verified.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea had launched “several” cruise missiles toward its western waters from an inland area at about 4pm on Saturday.
In a separate statement carried by KCNA yesterday, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the US for committing “serious military provocations aiming at” North Korea with a series of military exercises with South Korea this month.
“The reality stresses that the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] should counter the US with the toughest counteraction from A to Z as long as it refuses the sovereignty and security interests of the DPRK and this is the best option for dealing with the US,” it said.
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