South Korea Arrests Impeached President Yoon Suk-Yeol for Insurrection

It’s the end of a standoff that had veered from the bizarre to the downright embarrassing. Early on Wednesday morning, hundreds of investigators finally entered the fortified compound in Seoul where South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol had been holed up since his mid-December impeachment over an earlier declaration of martial law that prosecutors contend amounted to insurrection.

In executing their arrest warrant—the first against a sitting South Korean President—law enforcement officials avoided a repeat of tense scenes from Jan. 3, when they were blocked from detaining Yoon for five-and-a-half hours by his security staff, before finally beating a chastening retreat. In agreeing to comply with investigators, Yoon remained defiant, insisting in a video message that he had yielded simply to “avoid bloodshed” following earlier clashes between police and his supporters.

“President Yoon has decided to personally appear at the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) today,” Yoon’s lawyer, Seok Dong-hyeon, posted on Facebook. TV footage showed a convoy of vehicles leaving the presidential residence. Yoon can be detained and questioned for 48 hours, according to South Korean law, a period which also covers a scheduled court appearance.

Yoon’s detention marks the latest chapter in a bewildering series of events following his martial law decree on Dec. 3—when he became the first South Korean leader to place his country under military rule since democratization in the late 1980s. The opposition-led National Assembly quickly voted down that move, prompting the embattled President to send armed troops to attempt to seize the legislature and detain his political adversaries. Prosecutors allege this amounts to insurrection—a crime in South Korea punishable by life imprisonment…