South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol denies ordering troops to ‘drag out’ lawmakers
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Impeached president appears in constitutional court following last month’s short-lived martial law order. South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol has denied ordering troops to “drag out” lawmakers from the country’s parliament to prevent them from overturning his short-lived declaration of martial law last month.
![[Supporters of Yoon Suk Yeol hold banners reading ‘Nullity of impeachment’]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cefcef51bbee88cbddc90f5200a21e32e61525b8/0_531_8192_4915/master/8192.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In his first appearance at the constitutional court, which will decide whether to uphold his impeachment, Yoon replied “no” when asked by a judge whether he had ordered the military to remove lawmakers from the national assembly building. Defiant MPs clambered over walls to gain access to the chamber and confronted armed troops before voting to lift martial law in the early hours of 3 December, only six hours after Yoon had imposed it.
While MPs were not ultimately prevented from voting, the scenes were a worrying reminder of South Korea’s recent history, when the country was ruled by military dictatorships. Yoon’s declaration triggered weeks of political uncertainty in South Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy. The suspended president’s fate now rests on whether the constitutional court’s justices vote to uphold his impeachment or overturn it and return him to office.
His denial of allegations that he had given troops the green light to remove MPs from the parliament building contradicted claims made by the then chief of the army special warfare command, Lt Gen Kwak Jong-keun. In an appearance at the national assembly last month, Kwak said Yoon had called him on a secure phone to tell him that MPs planning to vote down martial law had yet to reach a quorum. Yoon, Kwak said, ordered him to “break down the door immediately and remove those inside”.
