Yoon refuses questioning as his lawyers accuse CIO, NOI chiefs of 'insurrection'
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- MICHAEL LEE
- [email protected]
![Supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol protest on Jan.16 outside the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi, where he is being held when not undergoing questioning. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/17/e0cf7cdf-51b5-4931-a507-c4e46219fa65.jpg)
Supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol protest on Jan.16 outside the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi, where he is being held when not undergoing questioning. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s legal team filed a criminal complaint on Thursday accusing the chiefs of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) and the National Office of Investigation (NOI) of committing an “insurrection” against the government by taking Yoon into custody the previous day.
In their complaint to the state prosecution service, Yoon’s lawyers claimed CIO chief Oh Dong-woon and NOI head Woo Jong-soo ordered investigators and police “to trespass upon the presidential residence and arrest the president on Jan. 15 after obtaining an illegal warrant from a court without jurisdiction.”
The impeached president and his lawyers have repeatedly argued the CIO does not have the right to investigate or detain a sitting president.
Their complaint, whose charges mirror those levied against Yoon regarding his Dec. 3 declaration of martial law, was filed the same day that Yoon refused to submit to questioning by CIO investigators on the second day of his detainment.
The CIO said Yoon’s legal team told the agency he would not attend the questioning session scheduled for 2 p.m. approximately 10 minutes before it was due to begin.
The agency had said earlier in the day that Yoon’s interrogation had been moved from the morning to the afternoon at the president’s request.
However, Yoon’s lawyer Yun Gap-geun told local media the same morning that the president would not attend any more questioning sessions.
Yun said the president is “not well” and “already made his position clear the previous day, leaving nothing more to be interrogated about.”
The agency questioned the president for 10 hours beginning at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, shortly after its investigators arrested him over allegations that he declared martial to overthrow the country’s democratic order.
Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly on Dec. 14 and spent most of the time thereafter holed up inside his residence in the Hannam-dong neighborhood of Yongsan District, central Seoul.
The CIO previously tried to execute an arrest warrant against him on Jan. 3 but was forced to back down after a five-hour standoff with a combined force of 200 Presidential Security Service (PSS) agents and military personnel from the Capital Defense Command, who prevented investigators from approaching the presidential residence.
The agency only succeeded in taking Yoon into custody on Wednesday after receiving help from approximately 1,200 police officers, who scaled barricades and cut barbed wire around the compound that had been set up by the PSS.
In a prerecorded message released after his arrest, Yoon said he decided to submit to CIO officials to avoid “bloodshed” between the PSS and members of law enforcement, but also stressed that he does not recognize the agency’s authority to detain him.
![President Yoon Suk Yeol is seen seated in the back of a car taking him to the Seoul Detention Center from the headquarters of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi, where investigators questioned him after taking him into custody on Jan. 15. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/17/f2fddd80-dde3-47ba-86be-3d1c9d134d4c.jpg)
President Yoon Suk Yeol is seen seated in the back of a car taking him to the Seoul Detention Center from the headquarters of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi, where investigators questioned him after taking him into custody on Jan. 15. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
The president refused to respond to most of the questions asked by investigators on Wednesday, according to the CIO.
Yoon spent Wednesday night in solitary confinement at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi.
According to sources cited by the JoongAng Ilbo, Yoon declined to don the jumpsuit provided by the facility and slept in the same suit he was wearing when he was arrested earlier in the day.
His dinner consisted of a soybean paste stew, braised spicy chicken, salad and kimchi, while his breakfast on Thursday included cereal, hard-boiled eggs, biscuits and milk.

Yoon ate approximately two-thirds of his breakfast, according to the JoongAng Ilbo, which noted that he is being provided the same meals as other detainees.
At 5 p.m. the same day, the Seoul Central District Court began to review the legality of his detention by the CIO at the request of his defense team.
The CIO, which has 48 hours to hold Yoon, said the detention period has been put on hold until the court rules on the legality of his arrest.
The court is expected to reach its decision later Thursday night.
If the court rules that Yoon’s detainment is unlawful, the CIO must release him.
![Justices of the Constitutional Court are seated during the second formal hearing of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Jan. 16. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/17/57559ad1-23c3-4a03-ac2f-c3112c9fe3da.jpg)
Justices of the Constitutional Court are seated during the second formal hearing of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Jan. 16. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
In light of his detainment, Yoon requested that the Constitutional Court postpone the second formal trial hearing of his impeachment trial on Thursday, but the court declined.
By law, the court can proceed with the trial without Yoon present beginning with the second hearing.
During its second hearing, the court accepted a list of witnesses submitted two days earlier by the National Assembly’s impeachment investigation committee, which is the main plaintiff in the case.
The witnesses include former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung, former Army Special Warfare Command chief Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-geun, former Capital Defense Command chief Lt. Gen. Lee Jin-woo, former National Police Agency Commissioner Cho Ji-ho, and former National Intelligence Service First Deputy Director Hong Jang-won.
Yeo, Kwak and Lee are accused of sending troops to prevent lawmakers gathered at the National Assembly on Dec. 3 from voting to overturn his decree, while Cho is accused of dispatching police to help martial law forces block access to the building.
Hong later said that Yoon ordered the arrest of key politicians under his martial law decree, including Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik and then-People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon.
The Constitutional Court also accepted a list of evidence submitted by the National Assembly committee, which includes surveillance camera footage of the National Assembly, National Election Commission offices and Woo’s official residence from the night martial law was declared.
The court also dismissed an objection from Yoon’s defense team that the evidence had been unlawfully accepted for consideration during the impeachment trial.
Update, Jan. 16: Headline changed, details of complaint filed against CIO and NOI chiefs added.
BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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