SEOUL: As 3,000 riot police swarmed his hillside villa on Wednesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol huddled with party loyalists, telling them that people were increasingly realising the country’s legal system had been hijacked by leftist forces.
“People are now seeing how serious the situation is,” the impeached president told the gathering, according to one lawmaker present, Yoon Sang-hyun.
“It starts now,” the 64-year-old leader said, according to another lawmaker, Kwon Young-jin.
Yoon cited the support of thousands who have taken to the streets to defend him since he was impeached by parliament over his short-lived Dec. 3 martial law decree and criminally accused of insurrection, the second lawmaker said.
Hours later, Yoon, a former prosecutor, ended a weeks-long standoff and became the country’s first sitting president to be arrested, submitting to authorities in what he calls an illegal investigation.
His unsubstantiated assertions about South Korea’s compromised institutions are not new. They are among several grounds he cited, without evidence, to justify his martial law decree, which plunged one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies into unprecedented political turmoil.
But the accounts of his final impassioned plea, some of which have not previously been reported, suggest Yoon senses his support is swelling and sees a glimmer of hope for his presidency.
Yoon remained in detention on Friday and was refusing to talk to investigators. Apart from the criminal probe, he faces an impeachment trial in the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether to restore his presidential powers or remove him from office.
His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
POLLS BOUNCE
Support for Yoon’s conservative People Power Party collapsed after his martial law declaration, which he rescinded hours later in the face of a unanimous vote in parliament rejecting it.
But in the turmoil since – in which the opposition-majority parliament impeached his first replacement and investigators botched an initial attempt to arrest Yoon – the PPP’s support has sharply rebounded.
