Seoul court rejects second request to extend Yoon’s detention

SEOUL: A Seoul court rejected a second request Saturday to extend the detention of accused President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed attempt to declare martial law, putting pressure on prosecutors to quickly charge him.

Yoon was arrested last week on insurrection charges, becoming the first South Korean head of state to be detained in a criminal investigation.

His Dec. 3 martial law decree only lasted about six hours before lawmakers got the round, but it still managed to plunge South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades.

The Seoul Central District Court on Saturday rejected a request for an extension of detention, prosecutors said in a brief statement.

This follows a decision by the same court a day earlier when a judge stated that it was “difficult to find sufficient grounds” to grant an extension.

Prosecutors had planned to keep the disgraced leader in custody until February 6 for questioning before formally charging him, but that plan will now have to be adjusted.

“With the court’s rejection of the extension, prosecutors must now work quickly to formally charge Yoon to keep him behind bars,” Yoo Jung-hoon, a lawyer and political commentator, told AFP.

Yoon has refused to cooperate with the criminal investigation, and his legal defense team argued that investigators lack legal authority.

The suspended president also faces a separate hearing at the Constitutional Court which, if he upholds his impeachment, would officially remove him from office.

An election would have to be held within 60 days.