The police on the 6th noted there is a legal controversy over a document sent by the Public Official Crime Investigation Unit, stating, "We will commission the execution of an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol to the police." They said they will continue to consult with the unit regarding the execution.
It seems that the police have judged it difficult to execute the arrest warrant alone while forming a joint investigation headquarters with the unit. Previously, the arrest warrant for President Yoon, obtained from the court, expires at midnight today.
Baek Dong-heum, the deputy head of the National Investigation Headquarters' Special Investigation Unit for Martial Law, stated in a briefing, "After internal legal review, we determined that the document directing execution by the unit has legal controversies," and noted, "We will continue to consult with the unit regarding the execution of the arrest warrant."
A police official said, "The unit is clearly the subject of executing the arrest warrant," adding, "Delegating execution instructions to the police is legally problematic, and we judged it inappropriate for the police to execute the arrest warrant promptly after receiving the document from the unit." In addition, the official stated, "There has never been a case where the police executed a warrant issued to the prosecution in the past."
Previously, the unit announced in the morning that it had sent a document to the police on the 5th, delegating the execution of President Yoon's arrest warrant to them. In response, the police stated they received the 'execution instructions for the arrest and search warrants' document from the unit around 7 a.m.
A police official stated, "We coordinated over the phone with the unit this morning," adding that they initially discussed proceeding under the joint investigation headquarters system. The official continued, saying, "We intend to proceed with the execution of the arrest warrant or investigation in consultation with the unit within the framework of the joint headquarters," and noted, "We are considering methods to execute the arrest warrant without deviating from the general framework." When asked if the unit acknowledged the legal issues with the document stating "the arrest warrant will be entrusted to the police," the official also commented, "They acknowledged it to some extent."
The police also addressed the intervention by the Presidential Security Service, which blocked execution during the initial warrant execution on the 3rd, noting, "When executing President Yoon's second arrest warrant, we will consider the possibility of apprehending the staff of the Presidential Security Service who interfered." A police official, when asked if they discussed alternatives such as deploying a police SWAT team, stated they are "considering various options" but could only say, "I can only provide fundamental plans."