Yoon’s release comes one day after a court cancelled his arrest warrant on insurrection charges.
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol has been released from prison a day after a court cancelled his arrest warrant.
Footage aired on local TV channels showed Yoon leaving prison on Saturday, waving his hand and bowing deeply to his supporters.
His lawyers said the court decision “confirmed that the president’s detainment was problematic in both procedural and substantive aspects”, calling the ruling the “beginning of a journey to restore rule of law”.
Yoon’s team filed the request to cancel his arrest warrant with the Seoul Central District Court last month, pleading it was illegal. He was arrested in January on insurrection charges over his brief imposition of martial law in December.
Earlier on Saturday, South Korean prosecutors ordered impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol to be released from custody.
“The Emergency Martial Law Special Investigation Headquarters has sent a release order for President Yoon to Seoul Detention Center today,” the prosecution said in a statement on Saturday, according to local media outlet Yonhap.
On Friday, the Seoul Central District Court said it accepted Yoon’s request to be released from prison, citing the need to address questions over the legality of the investigations on the president.
Investigators have alleged that Yoon’s brief martial law decree amounted to rebellion. If he is convicted of that offence, he would face the death penalty or life imprisonment.
‘Throwing people into crisis’
On Saturday, some 55,000 Yoon supporters rallied in Seoul’s main districts, while 32,500 people demonstrated against him near the Constitutional Court, Yonhap news agency reported.
A Gallup Korea poll on Friday revealed that 60 percent of respondents want Yoon to be removed from office.
The main opposition Democratic Party criticised prosecutors’ decision for “throwing the country and people into crisis”, and urged the Constitutional Court to remove Yoon from office as soon as possible.
Before the prosecutors’ decision, hundreds of Yoon supporters also protested in front of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.
What happens next?
Legal experts say that while Friday’s decision by the district court was not a vindication for Yoon, it did raise questions about the integrity of the indictment and touched on legal issues that do not have a clear precedent.
If “questions about the legality of the investigation process” are not cleared up, it may become grounds for a higher court to overturn any trial court ruling, the Seoul Central District Court said in its statement.
Arguments ended in the separate impeachment trial last week and the court was expected to issue a decision in the next few days on whether to remove Yoon from office permanently or reinstate him.
If Yoon is removed, a new presidential election would be held within 60 days.
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