When around 100 criminal investigators and police officers entered a hilly compound in central Seoul on Friday morning, they tried to achieve something that has never been done before in South Korea: detain a sitting president.
First, they made it through two blockades formed by parked vehicles and people. Then, when they came within 650 feet of the building where President Yoon Suk Yeol was believed to be holed up, they came face to face with an even more formidable barrier: 10 buses and cars along with 200 elite soldiers and bodyguards belonging to Mr. Yoon’s Presidential Security Service. Small scuffles erupted as the investigators tried in vain to break through and serve a court-issued warrant to take Mr. Yoon away.
Three prosecutors were allowed to approach the building. But there, Mr. Yoon’s lawyers told them that they could not serve the warrant because it was “illegally” issued, according to officials who briefed news media about what happened inside the compound.
Outnumbered, the 100 officials retreated after a five-and-a-half-hour standoff.
“It’s deeply regrettable,” the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, the independent government agency that led the raid into the presidential compound on Friday, said in a statement. It accused Mr. Yoon — who has already been suspended from office after being impeached by Parliament last month — of refusing to honor a court-issued warrant. “We will discuss what our next step should be.”
President
Yoon Suk Yeol’s
official residence
Seoul
SEOUL
SOUTH
KOREA
Road leading
to Yoon’s
residence
A bus blocked the road.
An armored vehicle
blocked the road.
Barricades and buses blocked
the gate to Yoon’s residence.
Hannam-daero
Thousands of Yoon’s supporters
gathered here Friday morning.
Police
buses
Anti-Yoon protesters
have camped out here.
Samil-daero
Police
buses
Police
buses
Anti-Yoon protesters
gathered around here.
N
300 feet
President
Yoon Suk Yeol’s
official residence
SEOUL
Road leading
to Yoon’s
residence
A bus blocked the road.
An armored vehicle
blocked the road.
Barricades and buses
Our small talk — about our fondness for the city, receiving Pulitzer Prizes the same year (in 2022) and being college professors — gave way to weightier issues: gentrification, ghosts and intergenerational trauma. Those subjects are all explored in “Good Bones,” his much-anticipated follow-up to his Tony-nominated “Fat Ham,” a Pulitzer winner about a Hamlet-inspired character’s struggles to overcome his family’s cycles of trauma and violence.
blocked the gate
to Yoon’s residence.
Thousands of Yoon’s
gold cash free spinssupporters gathered here.
Hannam-daero
Police
buses
Samil-daero
Police
buses
Anti-Yoon protesters
have camped out here.
Police
buses
Anti-Yoon protesters
gathered around here.
Seoul
SOUTH
KOREA
N
300 feet
Source: Aerial image by Airbus via Google Earth
By Agnes Chang, Chang W. Lee and John Yoon
The failure to bring in the deeply unpopular president deepened a growing sense of helplessness among South Koreans, exacerbated by the country’s sharply polarized politics. The nation appears rudderless and distracted by infighting at a time when it faces major challenges at home and on the international scene.
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