South Korea’s court issues new warrant to detain ex-President Yoon for another six months

Seoul: A Seoul court on Friday issued a warrant to detain former President Yoon Suk Yeol on charges linked to his alleged drone deployment to North Korea in October last year.

The Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant, citing the risk of evidence destruction, according to a special counsel team lead by Cho Eun-suk.

Yoon’s detention, which was set to expire on January 18, will be extended by up to another six months, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Cho’s team earlier requested an extension of his arrest while additionally indicting him over the alleged drone operation, which it claimed was aimed at inciting the North’s retaliation and using it as a pretext for the martial law declaration in December 2024.

The team suspects Yoon gave direct orders to the drone commander to dispatch drones to North Korea without reporting to the defence ministry or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This is the third time Yoon has been arrested.

The first time was in January last year on charges of leading an insurrection, though a court later accepted his request to cancel the arrest, granting his release in March.

He was later arrested again in July on charges related to his martial law bid, including alleged illegalities in calling only a few Cabinet members to a meeting held before he declared the decree on Dec. 3, as well as charges of obstructing investigators’ attempt to execute an arrest warrant.

In December last year, a Seoul court combined the insurrection trials of former President YoonSuk Yeol, former Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun and former police chief Cho Ji-ho over their involvement in last year’s failed martial law bid into a single trial.

The announcement came during Yoon’s trial hearing on charges of leading an insurrection at the Seoul Central District Court, which had been conducted separately from the trials of former military and defence officials, including Kim, and of Cho and other police leadership.

The court bench had earlier said it would merge the three trials as they deal with identical facts and have the same points of contention over charges of insurrection.

Six of the eight defendants of the three trials were present at the courtroom, including Yoon, the former defence chief and Kim Bong-sik, former head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

The bench plans to conduct witness examination on the former defence minister during Tuesday’s trial before carrying out evidence examination next week.

IANS