Who is President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee, the political couple mired in scandal?
Who is President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee, the political couple mired in scandal?
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South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol has been taken into custody over his declaration of martial law last month. Corruption investigators scaled the wall of his Seoul residence and cut through barbed wire defences to make him the first South Korean president to be arrested.
The president has been detained for the a shock late night announcement of emergency martial law in South Korea on December 3 2024. Politicians and the public sprang into action, and National Assembly members raced to parliament to unanimously vote against martial law while people blocked roads, prompting the military to withdraw.
President Yoon Suk Yeol had made the unannounced TV broadcast late that night. “I am declaring a state of emergency in order to protect the constitutional order based on freedom and eradicate shameful pro-North Korea anti-state groups, that are stealing freedom and happiness of our people,” Yoon said on national news channel YTN.
It was the first time that martial law had been declared in South Korea since 1979. The impeached president of South Korea, 63-year-old Yoon, came to office in the 2022 elections. He was previously the chief of Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, where he oversaw the convictions of former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for corruption.
