Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s ousted president, already on trial on insurrection charges, was rearrested and sent back to jail early on Thursday after a special prosecutor accused him of additional criminal offenses.
Mr. Yoon was impeached by South Korea’s legislature in December and arrested in January after a short-lived attempt to place his country under martial law in 2024. He was the first president in South Korean history to be indicted on criminal charges while in office.
In March, a judge released him from jail, saying that prosecutors had made a procedural error by miscalculating how long they could hold him in detention before indicting him in January on insurrection charges. That error rendered his detention — but not his indictment — invalid, the judge said.
Mr. Yoon was formally removed from office in April, when the Constitutional Court endorsed his parliamentary impeachment. But since his release from jail, he had been attending his insurrection trial as a free man.
He was often seen roaming around his neighborhood in southern Seoul, the capital, while several former military generals and police chiefs, including his former defense minister, remained in jail on charges of helping him to commit insurrection.
A special counsel was appointed by South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, under a bill passed by the legislature, the National Assembly. The special counsel, Cho Eun-suk, and his team of investigators had wanted to return Mr. Yoon to jail since they began their work last month. On Sunday, Mr. Cho asked a judge in Seoul to issue a warrant to arrest Mr. Yoon on additional criminal charges, including obstruction of justice.
The judge held a hearing on Wednesday. Afterward, Mr. Yoon was taken to a detention center south of Seoul to await the judge’s decision. The judge, Nam Se-jin, issued the arrest warrant on Thursday morning local time, saying that Mr. Yoon could destroy evidence against him if he remained free. He was then formally arrested and taken to a jail cell in the same center.
Mr. Yoon’s imposition of martial law lasted only six hours before the opposition-controlled National Assembly voted it down. But during that time, he had planned to detain a dozen political opponents, including Mr. Lee, then the main opposition leader, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Lee was elected president on June 3. His Democratic Party then passed a bill that allowed him to appoint the special prosecutor to begin new investigations into questions surrounding Mr. Yoon’s use of martial law.
Two months before Mr. Yoon declared martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, North Korea accused the South of sending unmanned drones to scatter propaganda leaflets over its capital, Pyongyang. The special counsel is investigating whether that episode was part of an attempt by Mr. Yoon to set off a military clash with the North, hoping to use it to declare martial law. Mr. Yoon’s government had denied the accusation.
Mr. Lee’s party also passed two other bills to appoint special prosecutors to investigate allegations of corruption surrounding Mr. Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, and an accusation that Mr. Yoon had covered up an investigation into the death of a South Korean marine.
Mr. Yoon said he had to declare martial law because the “anti-state” opposition “paralyzed” his government by abusing its majority power in the National Assembly. But the Constitutional Court found him guilty of “violating the constitutional order” when he sent troops to seize the legislature during martial law.
In its request for an arrest warrant this week, the special counsel’s team argued that Mr. Yoon had committed obstruction of justice when he instructed his bodyguards to block investigators who visited the presidential residence in January to detain him under a court-issued warrant. Mr. Yoon surrendered later that month, when prosecutors visited again with more police officers.
Mr. Yoon was also accused of violating the rights of some of his cabinet members when they were not invited to a cabinet meeting called on the night of Dec. 3 to discuss his decision to declare martial law. Those who attended the meeting later said they had voiced objection or concern about martial law, only to be ignored by Mr. Yoon.
The special counsel also accused Mr. Yoon of creating an illegal document — with signatures collected from a few cabinet members after the declaration of martial law — in order to add false legitimacy to his action.
Mr. Yoon’s lawyers denied these accusations, citing a lack of evidence and accusing the special prosecutor of misinterpreting the related laws.
“The special counsel, who is supposed to guarantee neutrality and fairness, is leading the most politicized and biased investigation,” they said in a statement.
Mr. Yoon has a small following of die-hard supporters. While he was attending the court hearing on Wednesday, they rallied outside the courthouse, opposing the arrest warrant and holding signs that said “Yoon Again!”
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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