South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a new and potentially more robust attempt to arrest him for insurrection after a top investigator vowed to do whatever it takes to break a security blockade and take in the embattled leader.

Critics of the presidential security service call it a relic from the days of South Korea's strongman leaders.

A South Korean court on Tuesday approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, the embattled leader who plunged the country into political chaos by his shock decision to declare martial law nearly a month ago.

Behind rows of barbed wire and a small army of personal security, impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol remained holed up in his sprawling hillside villa with his wife, dogs and cats on Tuesday as investigators planned his arrest.

South Korea’s anti-corruption agency dispatched investigators to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday.

Tensions ran high near the residence of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Thursday, as rival protesters clashed and hundreds of supporters formed a blockade to prevent his imminent arrest.

“South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will accept the decision of the Constitutional Court that is trying parliament’s impeachment case against him, even if it decides to remove the suspended leader from office,” his lawyer said on Thursday (January 9, 2025).

The suspended president has defied repeated summons in a separate criminal investigation into allegations he masterminded insurrection with his Dec. 3 martial law bid

As impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol fights for his political survival, the embattled leader has found an ally among young conservative men.

For weeks, impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol has remained in his compound and refused to respond to detention and search warrants.

Anti-corruption agency expresses ‘serious regret about attitude of suspect who did not respond to a process by law’