The impeached president of South Korea was arrested after investigators climbed the walls

Yoon Suk-yeol became the first South Korean president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut razor wire to detain him.

Yoon, 64, is being investigated for rebellion due to the failure of a martial law order on December 3 that plunged the country into turmoil.

He was also removed by Parliament and suspended from office, but will not be removed from office unless the Constitutional Court upholds the removal decision.

However, Yoon’s dramatic arrest on Wednesday ended a weeks-long standoff between investigators and the presidential security team.

Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Bureau for Senior Officials (CIO) They failed to arrest him on January 3 After he entered into a six-hour confrontation with his security detail.

But before dawn on Wednesday, a much larger team of investigators and police arrived at his residence in central Seoul, armed with ladders to climb the buses blocking its entrance and stake crops to cut the razor wire.

Other officers in the arrest team, numbering about 1,000, scaled walls and climbed nearby corridors to reach the presidential residence.

Several hours later, authorities announced Yoon’s arrest.

In a three-minute video posted just before his arrest, the 64-year-old leader said he would cooperate with investigators, while repeating previous claims that the arrest warrant was not legally valid.

“I decided to appear before the IT director, even though this is an illegal investigation, in order to prevent any hateful bloodshed,” he said, adding that he witnessed officials “storming” the security perimeter of his home with firefighting equipment.

On Wednesday afternoon, investigators said Yoon remained silent throughout the interrogation.

Yoon’s lawyers said his arrest was “unlawful” because the CIO, as an anti-corruption agency, had no authority to investigate allegations of rebellion against Yoon. They also claim that the arrest warrant was issued by the wrong jurisdiction.

However, officials from the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice confirmed that the arrest warrant was legal.

Park Chan-dae, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said Wednesday’s arrest showed that “justice in South Korea is alive.”

He said during a party meeting that this arrest “is the first step towards restoring constitutional order, democracy and the rule of law.”

The country is currently led by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok as acting president. He came to power after the first acting president, Han Dak Soo was also removed By Parliament, where the opposition has a large majority.

The clock is starting to tick for investigators.

Under the current arrest warrant, they can detain Yoon for up to 48 hours from the point of arrest, after which they need a new warrant to detain him during investigation.

If this arrest warrant is granted, they can detain him for up to 20 days before he stands trial. Without a new warrant, Yoon must be released.

He is expected to be detained at the Seoul Detention Center in Uywang, Gyeonggi Province, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the CIO’s office.

Yoon’s supporters continued to protest the arrest outside the investigation office, where he was taken for questioning.

They had gathered outside his house before dawn on Wednesday with his opponents.

The anti-Leon crowd chanted “Congratulations and Celebrations” when his arrest was announced, cheering and applauding what they saw as a success for law enforcement.

But Yoon’s supporters were dismayed. One of them told the BBC: “We are very upset and angry. The rule of law has collapsed.”

The contrasting scenes between these two camps on Wednesday reflect the deep polarization within the country, which has long been characterized by stark divisions between conservatives and progressives.

The political saga has also pitted two branches of executive power against each other: law enforcement officers armed with a legal arrest warrant and presidential security staff, who say they are obligated to protect the suspended president.

While the former president faces questioning over the accusations, the country remains plagued by uncertainty, with no clear solution to the widening political divide.

South Korea has been plagued by political turmoil since Yoon’s stunning but short-lived declaration of martial law on December 3, which saw several lawmakers scale fences and break barriers to enter the National Assembly to vote to reject the order.

The president said he was protecting the country from “anti-state” forces sympathetic to North Korea, but it soon became clear he was motivated by his own political problems.

Yoon has been a weak president since the opposition won the general election last April by a landslide – and his government was forced to veto bills proposed by the opposition.

An unprecedented few weeks followed, with Parliament voting to impeach Yoon, later suspending him, and authorities opening a criminal investigation into the attempt.

Several of the country’s top leaders — including former Defense Minister Kim Young-hyun, who is said to have proposed declaring martial law — and Yoon’s political aides have also since resigned.

Tens of thousands of South Koreans have also braved the freezing temperatures and taken to the streets in recent weeks, with some showing their support for Leon, and others calling for his removal from office.

All this while Yoon remained holed up in his home, refusing to comply with multiple subpoenas to appear for questioning, a defiant stance that led authorities to arrest him.

Separately, the Constitutional Court began A trial to determine whether he should be permanently removed from officeObservers say she may issue a ruling as early as February. The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Additional reporting by Rachel Lee in Seoul