Yoon to become South Korea s first sitting president to go on criminal trial

Seoul – Ousted South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol’s lawyer on Feb 20 said Yoon’s bid to impose martial law was aimed at thwarting a “legislative dictatorship” by the opposition-controlled parliament, as the president became the country’s first sitting head of state to stand trial in a criminal case.

The 64-year-old former prosecutor has been behind bars since he was arrested in January on charges of insurrection, for which he could be sentenced to life in prison or face the death penalty.

Criminal proceedings at Seoul’s Central District Court on Feb 20 lasted just over an hour.

Mr Yoon attended the hearing but did not speak, an AFP journalist in the packed courtroom said.

There was heavy security around the building, with Yonhap news agency reporting police mobilised around 3,200 personnel to the site.

A supporter of the ousted president dressed in a Captain America superhero outfit was spotted outside the security perimeter.

Prosecutors have accused the suspended president of being the “ringleader of an insurrection”.

They argued on Feb 20 against releasing him from the detention facility where he has been held since mid-January, saying Mr Yoon could try and “influence or persuade those involved in the case”.

Addressing the court, his lawyer Kim Hong-il in turn condemned the “illegal probe”, arguing the “investigating body has no jurisdiction”.

“The declaration of martial law was not intended to paralyse the state,” Mr Kim said.

Instead, he said, it was meant to “alert the public to the national crisis caused by the legislative dictatorship of the dominant opposition party, which had crippled the administration”.

“The judiciary must serve as the stabilising force,” he told the court’s three judges, warning that he was “witnessing a reality where illegality compounds illegality”.