The special investigative team from the National Investigation Headquarters of the police, which is probing the Dec. 3 martial law incident, has secured and started analyzing President Yoon Suk-yeol’s personal mobile phone call records. Additionally, the police have obtained a document in which President Yoon instructed Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, also the Minister of Strategy and Finance, to cut off the operating expenses of the National Assembly.
According to police on the 22nd, the special investigative team obtained a communication warrant for President Yoon’s mobile phone to secure the call records, which are currently being analyzed. However, it is known these records pertain to a regular mobile phone, not a secure mobile phone.
The police plan to analyze the call records to determine whether President Yoon and related parties conspired for rebellion. They also intend to continue efforts to secure the actual device and call records of the secure phone used by President Yoon on the day of martial law.
The police have also secured an instruction document that President Yoon allegedly delivered to Deputy Prime Minister Choi during a Cabinet meeting held right before the martial law declaration. This document reportedly contains instructions to stop the National Assembly’s operating budget and to allocate funds for the legislative operations under martial law.
Deputy Prime Minister Choi had previously disclosed during an urgent inquiry of the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee on the 17th that he had submitted the document received from President Yoon to investigative authorities. He noted, “I cannot recall the exact words, but there was a mention of securing financial resources.”
The police maintain that the Cabinet meeting convened just before the martial law declaration was procedurally and substantially flawed. This is based on the absence of the administrative safety officer who should have composed the minutes, the nonexistence of meeting records, and the lack of documents indicating that deliberations took place.
The police have completed investigations of 10 out of 12 Cabinet members who attended this meeting, excluding President Yoon and former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun.