Regarding the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials stating that it would entrust the execution of the arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol to the police, it has been reported that on the 6th, the police conveyed that there were legal flaws in the official document sent by the Office, making it difficult to comply with the request.
Yun Geon-young, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea and a secretary of the Public Administration and Security Committee at the National Assembly, stated that during a meeting with officials from the National Investigation Headquarters' Special Investigation Unit that morning, they received this response.
According to lawmaker Yun, the police indicated that due to possible abuse of authority, among other legal defects in the document sent by the Office, it was challenging to follow through. They claimed that, according to Article 81 of the Criminal Procedure Act and the investigation rules based on it, an arrest warrant must be executed by judicial police officers under a prosecutor's command.
The police also stated that the execution of the arrest warrant should be conducted within the framework of the cooperation investigation headquarters. This is interpreted to mean that, although a prosecutor belonging to the Office executes the arrest warrant, the police, which have formed a cooperative team with the Office, should dispatch criminal officers to provide support, maintaining the existing format.
During the meeting, Democratic Party lawmakers asked if the National Investigation Headquarters was willing to arrest given the weak will of the Office to do so, to which a Headquarters official reportedly responded, as communicated by lawmaker Yun, that if the Office is unable to properly investigate, they would take over and conduct a thorough investigation.
In this meeting, a National Investigation Headquarters official reportedly mentioned that a senior official from the Office had implied during the first attempt to execute the arrest warrant on the 3rd that there was no will to execute the warrant that day. It was also explained, according to lawmaker Yun, that although it was possible to arrest President Yoon as there were few security personnel initially when the Office and police personnel reached the third checkpoint after breaking through the first and second checkpoints within the presidential residence, the Office did not proceed due to delays.
The deadline for executing the arrest warrant issued by the Seoul Western District Court is until midnight of this day. The cooperation team comprising the Office and police attempted to execute the arrest warrant for President Yoon on the 3rd, but the execution was halted due to strong opposition from the Presidential Security Service.
The Office, deliberating on a solution, sent an official document the previous night around 9 p.m. entrusting the execution of the arrest warrant to the National Investigation Headquarters, which reportedly confirmed the document around 7 a.m. this day. The police claim that in this process, the Office sent the document unilaterally without any detailed consultation procedures.