South Korea's impeached president fends off arrest attempt over martial-law decree

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SEOUL—South Korean investigators failed to arrest the country’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, thwarted by his armed Secret Service bodyguards in another tense showdown resulting from his short-lived martial-law decree last month. Yoon, who is being investigated for insurrection among other charges, has refused three summonses to appear for questioning.

He views the legal scrutiny as illegitimate. On Tuesday, a Seoul court issued a detainment warrant that would bring the 64-year-old leader in front of investigators. In recent days, Yoon and his legal-defense team had lambasted the warrant as “illegal and invalid," demanding the issuing judge be investigated.

The arrest warrant is valid through Monday. Before then, the special unit handling the probe—the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials—could attempt again to detain the conservative Yoon, who is at South Korea’s presidential residence in central Seoul. They could also ask the court to reissue the warrant after its expiration.

The political tumult lands at a sensitive time for Seoul, with a looming change in U.S. administrations, an increasingly bellicose North Korea and a plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people. Yoon was stripped of his presidential powers after his Dec.

14 impeachment. Then last week, his immediate successor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, was also impeached. The special investigators had threatened that presidential security personnel who helped Yoon defy arrest could be charged with dereliction of duty or obstruction.