Seoul, March 8 (IANS) The South Korean prosecution said on Saturday it ordered impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s release from custody after a court accepted his request to overturn his arrest.
A special investigation team said it notified the Seoul Detention Centre in Uiwang, just south of the capital, to free him, one day after the Seoul Central District Court ordered Yoon’s release.
Yoon will be released 52 days after investigators detained him and brought him there on January 15 on charges of inciting an insurrection through his December 3 declaration of martial law, Yonhap news agency reported.
Earlier in the day, the South Korean ruling and Opposition parties sparred over a court decision to release detained President Yoon Suk Yeol, deepening the political divide that has thrown the country into political turmoil.
The ruling People Power Party (PPP) demanded Yoon’s immediate release, denouncing his detention as “illegal” during a protest in front of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in southern Seoul.
“They are still detaining the President 20 hours after the court ruled for his release,” the PPP’s interim leader Kwon Young-se said at the protest, urging the prosecution not to “give in to threats from the Opposition party.”
The protest was attended by 35 PPP lawmakers, who chanted, “Release the President.”
Kweon Seong-dong, the party’s floor leader, warned that the party would file a complaint against the prosecution on charges of “illegal detention” if it failed to free the President.
Meanwhile, the main Opposition Democratic Party (DP) strongly urged the prosecution to appeal the court’s decision during a rally near the same prosecution office. The party warned that failing to do so would be a “betrayal of the people and a concession to the ringleader of an insurrection.”
Emphasising that an appeal was a legitimate legal procedure, the DP cautioned that not pursuing this option would be viewed as “an excuse” to “set Yoon Suk Yeol free.”
–IANS
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