South Korean President Yoon defends call for martial law in his impeachment trial | news

Yoon says the special forces soldiers sent to the National Assembly on December 3 were not there to disrupt the legislature.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has rejected allegations in his impeachment trial that he ordered members of the military to withdraw lawmakers from the National Assembly during short-lived martial law last month.

Yoon (64 years old) said: Constitutional Court He said in Seoul on Tuesday that he worked in public service with a “firm commitment to free democracy.”

He was then transferred to a military hospital, Yonhap News Agency reported.

He was the impeached president He has been detained since last week Under separate criminal charges, he led a rebellion by attempting to enact martial law in early December, a move that shocked the nation and was overturned by the National Assembly within hours.

Yoon said during the hearing that the special forces soldiers sent to the Legislative Council on December 3 were not there to disrupt the National Assembly or prevent it from blocking martial law because he knew such an action would have led to an untenable crisis.

“In this country, Parliament and the news media are much more powerful than the president, in a much higher position,” he told the court.

If the court rules against Yoon, he will lose the presidency, and elections will be called within 60 days.

His lawyers presented arguments in defense of Yoon’s martial law declaration, saying it was intended to sound the alarm about abuses committed by the opposition Democratic Party.

They said that the opposition’s actions paralyzed the government and pushed the country’s democratic and constitutional system to the brink of collapse.

“The decree was simply intended to define the form of martial law and was never intended to be implemented and could not be implemented due to possible conflict with higher-level laws,” lawyer Cha Ji-hwan told the court.

Cha also denied the testimony of military commanders involved in declaring martial law who said that Yoon and his top aides ordered the arrest of some members of the Legislative Council who clashed politically with the president.

The Democratic Party, joined by minority parties and also 12 members from Yoon’s People Power Party, obtained a two-thirds majority to impeach Yoon on December 14. The Constitutional Court is now deciding whether to uphold his removal or not.

Lawyers defending the case, who were selected by lawmakers, criticized the comments made by Yoon and his lawyers as “highly contradictory, irrational and unclear, making them completely incomprehensible.”

“If they continue to evade responsibility as they did today, it will only succeed in the impeachment trial and cause greater disappointment among the public,” they said Tuesday.

Yoon stayed away from the first two sessions last week, but the trial, which could last months, will continue even if he is absent.