When about 100 criminal investigators and police entered a hilly compound in central Seoul on Friday morning, they attempted to accomplish something unprecedented in South Korea: arrest a sitting president.
First, they passed two roadblocks formed by parked vehicles and people. Then, when they got within 650 feet of the building where President Yoon Suk Yeol was believed to be, they were faced with an even more formidable obstacle: 10 buses and cars along with 200 elite soldiers and bodyguards belonging to Mr. Yoon’s Presidential Security Service. Small scuffles broke out as investigators tried in vain to break in and serve a court-issued warrant to remove Mr. Yoon.
Three prosecutors were allowed to approach the building. But there, the lawyers of Mr. Yoon told them they could not serve the warrant because it was issued “illegally,” according to officials who briefed the media on what happened inside the compound.
Outnumbered, the 100 officials retreated after a five and a half hour standoff.
“It is deeply regrettable,” the Office of Corruption Investigations for Senior Officials, the independent government agency that led the raid on the presidential compound on Friday, said in a statement. He accused Mr. Yun – who is already suspended from office after being impeached by Parliament last month – that he refused to honor a court-issued warrant. “We will discuss what our next step should be.”
The failure to bring in the deeply unpopular president deepened a growing sense of powerlessness among South Koreans, exacerbated by the country’s deeply polarized politics. The nation appears rudderless and distracted by infighting at a time when it faces major challenges domestically and internationally.
There is already uncertainty surrounding its alliance with the United States as the unpredictable Donald J. Trump prepares to return to the White House. Seoul’s decades-long nemesis, North Korea, sought to score propaganda points from the South’s political quagmire, with state media reporting that its neighbor was in “paralysis of state administration and spiraling socio-political confusion.”
And, domestically, the crash of a Jeju Air passenger plane that killed 179 of the 181 people on board on Sunday added to a list of challenges ranging from widespread worker strikes to mounting household debt. On Thursday, the finance ministry sharply downgraded its growth forecast for 2025.
A Constitutional Court is considering whether to remove Mr. Yun, who was impeached on December 14 by the National Assembly. This came after he suddenly declared martial law 11 days earlier, sparking national outrage and calls for it to be overturned.
On Friday, the beleaguered Mr. Yun vowed to fight to return to office through the Constitutional Court trial and indicated he had no intention of voluntarily submitting to criminal investigations. Mr. Yun faces accusations of committing rebellion by sending armed troops to the National Assembly during his short-lived military rule.
Refusing to comply with the warrant, Mr. Yun “kept adding more reasons why he should be removed from office through impeachment,” said Lim Ji-bong, a law professor at Seoul’s Shogang University.
“He may think he survived today, but what he did today would not go down very well with the judges of the Constitutional Court and the judges who will ultimately try his rebellion case.”
Mr. Yoon is not the first South Korean politician to defy court orders to detain them. In 1995, prosecutors sought to question former military dictator Chun Doo-hwan on sedition and mutiny charges stemming from his role in a 1979 coup and a massacre of protesters the following year. He defied the call and headed to his southern hometown, followed by a throng of supporters.
Prosecutors chased him there. After an overnight confrontation, Mr. Chun surrendered himself.
But unlike Mr. Yoon, Mr. Chun was out of office when he faced the sedition charge. Mr. Yoon, although suspended, is still guarded with the full support of his Presidential Security Service, a government agency that employs teams of elite bodyguards and counter-terrorism experts handpicked from the police, military and other government agencies.
“People who have seen him rely on his bodyguards as a shield against his legal problems will see him as a coward,” said Mr. Lim.
Investigators have warned they will charge the presidential bodyguards with obstruction of justice.
“We will do everything we can to provide security for the subject of our service in accordance with laws and regulations,” the Presidential Security Service said in a statement.
Public opinion polls showed a majority of South Koreans wanted Mr. Yoon to be deposed and punished for sedition. But his ruling party, which opposed his impeachment, denounced efforts to detain him.
Mr. Yoon also has die-hard supporters – mostly among older South Koreans. Thousands of his supporters have camped out on the sidewalk for days, chanting, “Let’s protect Yoon Suk Yeol!”
In a message given on New Year’s Day, Mr. Yun called them “freedom and democracy-loving citizens” and thanked them for braving the cold to show their support on the street near his home.
“I will fight with you to the end to save this country,” said Mr. Yoon.
When the officials left the compound of Mr. Yoon, they shouted: “We won!”
The protesters who were calling for the arrest of Mr. Yun began gathering again on Friday, marching near the residence of Mr. Yoon and shouting “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol!” They, as well as the country’s opposition parties, expressed outrage at the failure to arrest Mr. Yun, calling his presidential security agency “collaborators” in an insurgency.
“I’m so angry,” said Lee Ye-seul, 19, a university student in Seoul. “I will speak until he is removed and those involved in the rebellion are punished.”
For supporters of Mr. Yoon outside his residence, the security service was the last line of defense to save Mr. Yoon.
“The presidential guard should throw grenades if necessary to prevent them from approaching the president,” said Lee Yong Jin, 65.
However, the tactics of Mr. Yun stoking political disputes to avoid his legal troubles does not reflect badly on South Korea, said Ahn Byong-jin, a professor of political science at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
“It exposed South Korea’s weaknesses as a democracy,” he said.
