South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was freed from custody on March 8, a day after the Seoul Central District Court ruled to cancel his arrest warrant and prosecutors confirmed their decision not to appeal.
Yoon, who was arrested on Jan. 15 on charges of insurrection due to his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, was seen walking out of the detention center south of Seoul waving and bowing to a crowd of supporters waiting to greet him.
Many of those supporters could be seen waving both South Korean and U.S. flags. They were joined by roughly 55,000 Korean citizens who gathered in support of Yoon in the capital city, according to police estimates.
While he regained his freedom 52 days after detention, Yoon remains suspended from his duties, and his impeachment and criminal trials are still proceeding. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok is still South Korea’s acting president.
Yoon was initially arrested on Jan. 15 on the charges of leading an alleged insurrection at his official residence and then taken to South Korea’s Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) for questioning.
The prosecution then had a 10-day initial detention period to indict him on charges of leading an insurrection and thus extend his detention. However, the court found that the indictment was received hours after that deadline had passed, according to YNA.
The court also questioned the legality of the investigation process, ruling that Yoon’s alleged insurrection falls outside of CIO jurisdiction.
Yoon’s legal team praised the court’s March 7 decision, while criticizing the prosecution for further delaying Yoon’s release, which occurred 27 hours after the ruling. By law, the prosecution has seven days to appeal before a subject’s release.
“The president’s release is not just about addressing an individual’s injustice but the beginning of a difficult journey to restore the collapsed rule of law in this country,” the president’s attorneys said in a release.
Roughly 280 troops were deployed to the Assembly, which unanimously voted to overrule him and lift the declaration.
The Assembly, led by the opposition Democratic Party, voted to impeach Yoon on Dec. 14, 2024, and suspend him from his official duties.
Yoon has denied that the declaration of martial law amounted to an alleged insurrection and argued that full martial law was never executed.
“The decree was intended simply to establish the format of martial law and never intended to be executed, nor was it possible to execute it because of the potential for conflict with higher-level laws,” his lawyer, Cha Gi-hwan, told the Constitutional Court during a Jan. 21 impeachment hearing.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo first succeeded Yoon but was impeached himself two weeks later and replaced by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok.
Yoon’s People Power Party celebrated the president’s release and urged the Constitutional Court to consider the Seoul Central District Court’s decision when making their own.
“It is a just decision and the party hopes it serves as an opportunity to correct the distorted rule of law,” party spokesperson Shin Dong-wook said in a statement.
However, the opposition Democratic Party accused the court of exacerbating the national crisis by releasing Yoon and called on the Constitutional Court to formally impeach him. More than 32,000 citizens gathered in Seoul to protest the release.
That decision to remove or reinstate Yoon, according to YNA, is expected to come later this month, after hearings came to an end on Feb. 25.
If Yoon is removed from office, a snap presidential election will be held within 60 days of the decision.
South Korea’s opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is facing his own legal challenges ahead of the potential election as he appeals a lower court’s one year suspended prison sentence for violating election law by making false statements during his 2022 presidential campaign. The Seoul High Court is expected to announce its verdict for that case on March 26.
