Ex-President Yoon accused of ordering security to show off guns in investigators' detention attempt
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol appears for questioning by a special counsel team at the Seoul High Prosecutors Office in Seoul, July 5. Joint Press Corps
A special counsel team has accused former President Yoon Suk Yeol of ordering his security staff to show off firearms when he resisted investigators' attempt to detain him in January, according to his arrest warrant request on Monday.
In the 66-page document filed to the court Sunday and obtained by Yonhap News Agency, the team investigating Yoon's Dec. 3 martial law imposition alleged the former president made the instruction to senior Presidential Security Service (PSS) officials on Jan. 11, four days before anti-corruption and police officials apprehended him.
Yoon allegedly ordered his security staff to carry guns as police investigators would be "afraid" of them, according to the document.
The special counsel team charged Yoon with obstruction of special official duties, abuse of authority and other charges for such attempts to resist his detention.
Yoon's legal team has rejected the allegations, claiming his detention was made with an illegal warrant.
The team also accused Yoon of instructing Kim Seong-hoon, then deputy chief of the PSS, to delete records of secure phones used by three former military commanders allegedly involved in martial law operations, days after his botched attempt on Dec. 3.
Yoon's lawyers said the former president only instructed officials to take appropriate measures in accordance with the law, arguing that the charge does not stand as the records were not deleted.
Yoon also allegedly ordered the presidential spokesperson for foreign press on Dec. 4 to explain the situation to foreign media based on false information, such as lawmakers not being restricted from entering the National Assembly and martial law being declared within constitutional constraints.