South Korean prosecutors indict president on martial law charges

South Korean prosecutors have indicted impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived martial law decree, making him the country’s first leader to face criminal charges while in office.

Yoon is accused of leading an insurrection after he declared martial law on December 3 and sent troops into the national parliament. He withdrew the order six hours later after opposition MPs voted to reject it.

The move shocked the country and plunged it into its worst political crisis in decades. It marked the first time South Korea had come under military rule since its transition to democracy in the late 1980s.

His indictment sets in train a trial process and, if convicted, he faces the prospect of life imprisonment or even the death penalty, although South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.

Yoon has been detained since January 15 when hundreds of police swarmed the presidential residence where he had been holed for weeks while refusing authorities’ requests to face questioning over the incident.

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With the arrest warrant due to expire, prosecutors faced the option of formally indicting him or releasing him after a court twice refused requests to extend his detention over the weekend. A number of top military officials have also been indicted for their roles in the alleged insurrection.

The saga has exposed deep divisions within Korean society. Thousands of anti-Yoon protesters took to the streets to rally for the president to be removed from office, while Yoon’s conservative base also turned out in their thousands to defend the embattled leader.

Yoon, a former prosecutor himself, and his legal team have maintained his arrest was illegal and have argued that the use of martial law by a president cannot constitute treason. However, many experts have argued that his decree was unconstitutional.