The special counsel team led by Cho Eun-seok investigating rebellion and treason allegations related to the Dec. 3 martial law requested an arrest warrant for former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae on the 9th.
The rebellion special counsel said at 7:41 p.m. that day it filed an arrest warrant request for the former Minister Park on charges of engaging in important duties related to rebellion and abuse of authority.
The former Minister Park is accused of instructing the Justice Ministry's Prosecutors' Office to review dispatching prosecutors to a joint martial law investigation headquarters after martial law was declared on Dec. 3 last year. He is also suspected of ordering the Correctional Service and the Immigration and Foreigners Policy Office to secure detention space and to have personnel on standby related to exit bans, respectively.
On the day martial law was declared, the former Minister Park, having been summoned by former President Yoon Suk-yeol, was one of the Cabinet members who first gathered at the Yongsan presidential office. After the declaration, the former Minister Park reportedly spoke in sequence with former Justice Ministry Prosecutors' Affairs Director Lim Se-jin, former Immigration Service Deputy Minister Bae Sang-eop, former Correctional Service head Shin Yong-hae, and former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung.
The special counsel suspects that in this process the former Minister Park issued follow-up instructions related to martial law. In fact, after the former Minister Park's call with former Deputy Minister Bae, the Immigration Control Team, which handles entry and exit bans and counterterrorism duties related to immigration, reported to the Justice Ministry building.
Starting with searches and seizures of the former Minister Park and the Justice Ministry and the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office on Aug. 25, the special counsel team has summoned those who spoke with the former Minister Park as reference witnesses for questioning. On the 24th of last month, it summoned the former Minister Park as a suspect to question him about the allegations, but the former Minister Park denied all charges. He maintains that in an emergency he issued only routine, general instructions and that there were no illegal orders.
The request by the rebellion special counsel for an arrest warrant for a Cabinet member who attended the meeting prior to the martial law declaration makes the former Minister Park the fourth, following former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun, former Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, and former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo. Former Minister Kim and former Minister Lee were detained, while the arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Han was rejected.