Prior to the execution of a second arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol, Yoon’s side has demanded that “if the police are to proceed with the execution of an illegal warrant, they must present their government employee ID and reveal their faces.”
Yoon’s legal representative, Attorney Yoon Gap-geun, stated in a press release today (13th) that “numerous illegal issues related to investigative authority and warrants have not been resolved at all, yet there is still a focus solely on the execution of illegality.”
Attorney Yoon argued that “fundamentally, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) does not have investigative authority over treason, and furthermore, the Seoul Western District Court does not have jurisdiction,” asserting that “a warrant issued by a court without jurisdiction, requested by an investigative body lacking authority, is inherently illegal and void.”
He further stated, “Moreover, the police’s mobilization of the riot squad and narcotics crime investigation unit lacks any legal basis,” highlighting that the CIO directing the police to execute the warrant lacks legal grounding, making it initially impossible to deploy police forces.
Attorney Yoon emphasized, “If the police ultimately proceed with the CIO’s directive to execute the illegal warrant, they must adhere to at least minimal legal obligations,” and demanded that “all police officers participating in the warrant execution must wear identification tags that verify their identity and affiliation and not wear masks or anything that conceals their faces for identity verification.”
Prior to this, it had been reported that the police had consulted on the warrant execution method, summoning commanders from the criminal riot police and narcotics crime investigation unit in the metropolitan area ahead of the execution of President Yoon’s second arrest warrant.
Regarding the police investigation into the leadership of the Presidential Security Service, Attorney Yoon stated, “The protection of the President is directly linked to national security and must be performed incessantly around the clock without any pause,” arguing that “the request and repeated summons of arrest warrants for the Security Service’s leadership are malevolent intentions to incapacitate the command structure of the Security Service and self-harm against national security.”
In response to allegations that President Yoon instructed the Security Service to consider use of force to block the execution of the arrest warrant, he refuted the claims as false.
Attorney Yoon affirmed, “The President has only emphasized lawful duties according to routine operational manuals, not issued such directives,” dismissing the insinuations that the President is inciting physical conflicts as “fake news” and entirely untrue.
Attorney Seok Dong-hyun, also representing President Yoon, stated on social media today, “If President Yoon freely appears at the public impeachment court of the Constitutional Court, he will clarify his position and views in front of all justices on whether the National Assembly’s impeachment of the President was justified and why he declared martial law as President.”
He further added that “if arrested by the CIO, President Yoon, a sitting head of state, would be forced to respond to unilateral questioning by a CIO prosecutor in a closed interrogation room, and the details of the interrogation or the content of the responses may not be immediately disclosed.”
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