Investigators said impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested on Wednesday over an insurrection accusation related to his martial law declaration.
Yoon has been holed up for weeks behind barbed wire barriers and a small army of personal security. Latest visuals show a motorcade was leaving the gates of his hillside residence.
Over 3,000 police officers and anti-corruption investigators were gathered there before dawn. Yoon supporters and his ruling People Power Party members were protesting attempts to detain him.
Yoon’s lawyer the detention was illegal, and designed to humiliate him publicly. The warrant investigators secured for his arrest is the first ever issued against an incumbent South Korean president.
Some minor scuffles broke out between tearful pro-Yoon protesters and police near the residence.
The South Korean Lawmakers voted to impeach him and remove him from duties on 14 December.
The Constitutional Court is deliberating over whether to uphold that impeachment and permanently remove him from office.
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