Kim Yong-hyun, the former defense minister of South Korea, was taken into custody early Sunday as prosecutors investigated his role in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived effort last week to impose martial law. That episode set off political upheaval in South Korea, including an opposition-led attempt to impeach the president and huge protests.
Mr. Kim is the first person to be detained as prosecutors begin their investigation into allegations made by President Yoon’s political opponents. The opposition asserts that Mr. Yoon and his followers in the government and military committed insurrection and other crimes when they sent soldiers and police officers into the National Assembly to seize the legislature shortly after the president declared martial law on Tuesday night.
Mr. Kim, who surrendered himself to investigators early Sunday, was arrested without a court warrant. The police and prosecutors can use such an “emergency arrest” when they have grounds to suspect a person committed a serious crime and there is risk of them fleeing or destroying evidence. They must apply for a court warrant within two days to formally arrest the suspect.
Mr. Kim, a key supporter of Mr. Yoon’s martial law plan, resigned after the extraordinary move fell through. The military rule lasted only six hours, after the National Assembly voted against it early Wednesday and forced Mr. Yoon to back down.
It was unclear whether Mr. Kim had a legal representative. Before his arrest, in an interview with the daily Dong-A Ilbo, he said he had been involved in Mr. Yoon’s declaration of martial law, but that it was imposed according to legal procedures.
For most of the two and a half years he has been in office, Mr. Yoon has endured low approval ratings and been in a near-constant political standoff with the opposition. They have tussled especially over his refusal to accept their demands that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate allegations of corruption involving his wife.
Mr. Yoon said in his surprise announcement late Tuesday that he was declaring martial law to rid the National Assembly of “shameless North Korean followers and anti-state forces.”
On Saturday, he apologized for his “desperate” action. He also offered a compromise: he said he would leave it to his People Power Party, or P.P.P., to decide how long he should remain in office and how the government should be run. That compromise helped his party’s leadership to decide to boycott the impeachment vote. All but three of the 108 P.P.P. lawmakers joined the boycott, saving Mr. Yoon from impeachment.
But his failed martial law, the first effort to impose military rule in South Korea in more than four decades, triggered a series of lawsuits by the opposition.
The Defense Ministry on Friday suspended three Army lieutenant generals from their jobs, as prosecutors investigated their possible roles in Mr. Yoon’s declaration of martial law. One of them, Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-geun, said Mr. Kim ordered him to send special forces troops into the National Assembly on Tuesday night. He said Mr. Kim also told him to remove lawmakers from the Assembly hall where they were gathering to vote against Mr. Yoon’s military rule, but that he did not follow the order.
The Defense Ministry said it also asked the Justice Ministry to ban the three generals and seven other military officers from leaving the country.
Mr. Yoon has not spoken publicly since the impeachment effort failed. But P.P.P. leader Han Dong-hoon later said that his party would push for Mr. Yoon’s “early resignation.”
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