Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was taken into custody Wednesday in a major police operation at the presidential compound, defiantly insisting that the anti-corruption agency had no authority to investigate his actions, but saying he complied to prevent violence.
In a video message recorded before he was escorted to the anti-corruption agency’s headquarters, Yoon lamented that “the rule of law has completely collapsed in this country.”
Yoon, the country’s first sitting president to be arrested, has been confined to his Hannam-dong residence in the capital Seoul for weeks, vowing to “fight to the end.” He justified his Dec. 3 declaration of a state of emergency as a legitimate act of governance against an “anti-state” opposition that is using its legislative majority to thwart his agenda, the AP reports.