South Korea's former President strongly resists special counsel's attempt to arrest him for questioning
SEOUL: Former President Yoon Suk Yeol has once again evaded efforts by prosecutors to enforce an arrest warrant, prompting the special counsel team to warn that physical force may be used next time.
On Friday, the team investigating former First Lady Kim Keon Hee and led by prosecutor Min Joong-ki attempted to detain Yoon at Seoul Detention Centre at around 8:30 a.m. They left empty-handed after more than two hours of confrontation.
Yoon, who is already in custody following his arrest by a separate special counsel on insurrection charges, refused to comply with the warrant execution.
Deputy Special Counsel Oh Jung-hee explained during a press briefing that Yoon lay on the floor of his detention cell without wearing his prison uniform, defiantly rejecting the arrest throughout the morning.
"Because the subject was a former president, we initially urged voluntary cooperation. However, he refused to comply and remained uncooperative,' Oh said.
The team made four separate requests with 20- to 30-minute intervals, but Yoon remained resistant. 'We refrained from using physical force out of concern for safety risks. However, we have informed the suspect that future attempts will include the use of physical means to execute the arrest," Oh added.
Oh also called on Yoon to act in accordance with the rule of law: 'As someone who has consistently emphasised fairness, common sense and legal principles, as a former prosecutor, prosecutor general and president, he should cooperate with the special counsel's investigation.' Oh stressed that the Korean people are closely watching whether the law is applied equally to all.
Earlier in the day, Special Counsel Moon Hong-joo, accompanied by a prosecutor and an investigator, personally led the arrest attempt. They reached the front of Yoon's holding cell with the assistance of correctional officers, but ultimately withdrew after Yoon refused to cooperate.
A court-issued arrest warrant allows the special counsel team to deploy its investigators to forcibly bring in a suspect for questioning if they fail to appear after being summoned. This includes suspects who are already detained. Yoon is currently detained at the detention centre following his arrest on July 10 over a separate insurrection case.
An arrest warrant was sought for Yoon after the former president snubbed the special counsel's summons to appear for questioning over his alleged illegal meddling in the 2022 by-elections.
The special counsel team had initially summoned Yoon for questioning on July 29. However, Yoon did not appear and offered no explanation for his refusal. After a second notice was sent for a July 30 appearance, which he also ignored, the team sought a court-issued arrest warrant with the Seoul Central District Court, which was granted. The warrant remains valid until Aug. 7.
Deputy Special Counsel Moon said a day earlier that the team intended to 'secure Yoon's appearance with the help of the detention centre,' making clear their intent to forcibly bring him in if necessary.
This is not the first time Yoon has defied such procedures. A separate special counsel team probing the insurrection allegations previously made three failed attempts to physically bring him in, all of which were blocked by his refusal to leave his detention cell.
Sources familiar with the matter said that no additional arrest attempt is planned for the rest of the day. - The Korea Herald/ANN
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
6 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Alleged to be monitoring Buddhist group for China, Chinese woman arrested in Australia on foreign interference charge
SYDNEY, Aug 4 — A Chinese woman appeared in court in Australia's capital Canberra today after police charged her with 'reckless foreign interference' for allegedly monitoring a Buddhist group in the city on behalf of a Chinese security agency. It is the third time charges have been brought under foreign interference laws introduced in Australia in 2018, and the first time a Chinese national has been charged under the legislation. The woman, who is also a permanent resident of Australia, faces a maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment if she is convicted, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a statement today. 'The AFP will allege the woman... was tasked by a Public Security Bureau of China to covertly gather information about the Canberra branch of Guan Yin Citta, a Buddhist association,' the statement said. The Chinese embassy in Canberra did not respond to a request for comment. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing. Police began investigating the woman's activities in March, acting on information provided by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the statement added. She was arrested on Saturday after a police search of homes in Canberra. The introduction of the foreign interference laws sparked tension with China, Australia's largest trading partner. Two previous foreign interference cases involved Australian citizens alleged to be working with Chinese intelligence agencies. 'Anyone who thinks it is acceptable to monitor, intimidate and potentially repatriate members of our diaspora communities should never underestimate our capabilities and resolve,' Mike Burgess, director-general of the ASIO, said in a statement. — Reuters
Sinar Daily
8 hours ago
- Sinar Daily
Gaza's Airdrop Ordeal: Humanitarian Aid or a Squid Game Show?
THINK of the infamous glass bridge scene in Squid Game: a line of desperate contestants, suspended high above the ground, forced to choose between panels of glass - one tempered, the other a death trap. Each step is a gamble. Behind them, time is ticking; ahead, only fear. Below, death awaits. Now shift that image to Gaza. Barefoot children, limping fathers and hollow-eyed mothers race beneath parachuting aid packages in an open-air prison. The skies rain not salvation, but risk - boxes that might fall safely or crash onto a crowd. Each run is a gamble. There is no courage here, only desperation. No winners, only survivors or casualties. The world watches - entertained, horrified or indifferent. But this is no game. Aid packages falling from the sky over Gaza - parachutes drifting in cinematic slow motion, filmed from military aircraft and broadcast with dramatic flair - might seem like a gesture of compassion. But the reality is far darker. This is not humanitarianism - it's a performance. And for Palestinians, it's beginning to feel like a deadly game show. This handout photo taken over Gaza and released on August 1, 2025 by the Spanish Ministry of Defence shows the release of humanitarian aid from a Spanish Air Force Airbus A400M Atlas airplane over Gaza. (Photo by HANDOUT / Spain Defence Ministry / AFP) On July 27 this year, Israeli aircraft began dropping aid into northern Gaza after announcing limited daily pauses in its offensive. But almost immediately, the truth broke through the façade: the airdrops injured several Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera. Crates fell in chaotic fashion, endangering the very people they were supposedly meant to help. The image of people sprinting across bombed-out streets, risking injury or death just to grab a bag of rice, is chilling. It resembles something out of Squid Game, where survival becomes sport, and the powerless must scramble for basic needs under the watchful eye of the powerful. Dangerous, Chaotic, and Deeply Insufficient Each airdrop delivers only a symbolic fraction of what is actually needed. Gaza is home to over two million people. Yet scattered pallets, with no distribution system, are expected to feed entire communities. Worse still, aid packages often land in dangerous zones, the sea or inaccessible areas. Several Palestinians have died trying to retrieve them. This is not aid. This is a deadly lottery. The weakest lose. The desperate suffer. And the powerful film it. Nine-year-old malnourished Palestinian girl Mariam Dawwas is carried by her mother in the Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City on August 2, 2025. The World Health Organisation warned on July 27 that malnutrition was reaching "alarming levels" in Gaza. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP) Israel Prefers Airdrops - But Why? In a stunning moment of irony, Israel publicly announced that it would allow foreign governments to airdrop aid into Gaza. Think about that: the same state that bombs aid convoys and blocks trucks at land crossings is now saying, 'Go ahead - toss food from the air.' Why approve airlifts but restrict trucks? Because airdropping aid allows Israel to control the narrative. It gets to appear cooperative, while continuing to restrict the kind of aid that actually reaches people effectively. Allowing airdrops is a way to avoid allowing real access. It creates an illusion of generosity, while avoiding pressure to lift the siege, stop the bombing or allow UN convoys through. It's not a humanitarian breakthrough - it's a carefully calculated performance. Airdrops Are Political Theatre As shown in viral social media critiques like this one, airdrops serve more as PR (public relations) tools than real relief efforts. The visuals - parachutes over war-torn neighbourhoods - make headlines. But the deeper truth is hidden: the same governments staging these drops are often the ones supplying weapons, blocking ceasefire resolutions or criminalising pro-Palestinian advocacy. You can't bomb a population and expect applause for dropping them snacks. Airdrops sanitise brutality - making it easier for the global public to consume images of 'help' instead of confronting the real images of occupation, starvation and slaughter. TOPSHOT - French military personnel load an aircraft with humanitarian aid in Jordan, before an airdropping operation over the Gaza Strip on August 2, 2025. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP) Airdrops Dehumanise Palestinians Palestinians are not props in an action film. They are not waiting for Hollywood-style rescues from the sky. They are a people - with agency, rights and dignity, being deliberately starved, bombed and cut off from the world. Reducing them to aerial aid recipients strips them of that humanity. It shifts the narrative from one of occupation, apartheid and genocide to one of vague 'tragedy,' as if this were a natural disaster rather than a deliberate act. These stunts reduce Palestinians to figures in a crisis simulation. They are not contestants in a survival show. They are a people enduring displacement, starvation and bombardment. Their dignity is stripped away when they are forced to chase parachutes for food while the world claps from a distance. Humanitarian aid should empower - not humiliate. But these airdrops do the opposite. They turn survival into spectacle, while world powers refuse to address the root cause: a brutal siege and a military campaign that has devastated Gaza's civilian population. Gaza Needs Ceasefire - Not Cameras If the international community is serious about saving lives, it must demand: An immediate and lasting ceasefire Fully opened land crossings for medical and food aid Unimpeded humanitarian access led by neutral agencies Accountability for war crimes And above all, justice for Palestinians, not photo ops Until that happens, these airdrops remain what they truly are: A PR stunt for the complicit and an insult to the oppressed. In Gaza, aid should fall through borders - not from the sky. And certainly not like it's a scene out of a Squid Game show. Revda Selver is Friends of Palestine Public Relation and Media Executive. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.
New Straits Times
8 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Ill-equipped and tired: a night with a Ukrainian air defence unit
A menacing buzz reverberates through the night sky in eastern Ukraine. Explosions ring out, flashes illuminate sunflower fields below and the smell of gunpowder poisons the air. "There! Three kilometres away!" shouted one Ukrainian serviceman in the air defence unit equipped with Soviet-era weapons and tasked with intercepting Russian drones, before they home in on Ukrainian towns and cities. The long-range unmanned aerial vehicles originally designed by Iran but improved and launched by Moscow have been devastating Ukraine since the early chapters of the Kremlin's invasion launched in early 2022. Moscow has trumpeted its industrial-scale production of the cheap weapons, with state-television broadcasting what it called the world's largest drone factory. The rare footage showed the assembly of hundreds of jet-black triangle-shaped Gerans – geraniums in Russian. On the night in July that AFP embedded with an air defence unit in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia launched 344 drones, but its largest-ever barrage comprised of more than 700. "It's rotten tonight, just like the day before," said one serviceman in the air defence unit, leaning over a radar. Increasingly sophisticated Gerans are flying at higher altitudes and able to alter course en route, but Vasyl's unit is equipped with old, short-range weapons. "They fly chaotically and unpredictably. It has become harder to destroy them," the 49-year-old told AFP. "We're effective, but I can't promise that it will be like this every week," he added. Oleksandr, a fellow serviceman defending airspace near Pavlograd city, was scrutinising a radar where hundreds of red dots were appearing. "There's nothing we can do. It's not our area," he said of the incoming drones. His 20-year-old daughter, who lives in Pavlograd, was not answering her phone, he told AFP while lighting a cigarette. "But I warned her," added Oleksandr, who like others in this story identified himself with his first name or army nickname in line with military protocol. An explosion boomed, the horizon glowed crimson and dark smoke appeared in the sky moments later. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has secured several Patriot batteries from allies since the invasion began and is appealing for funding for 10 more systems. But the sophisticated systems are reserved for fending off Russian missile attacks on high-priority targets and larger cities. Ukraine is instead seeking to roll out cheap interceptor drones to replace units like Vasyl's, and Zelenskyy has tasked manufacturers with producing up to 1,000 per day. "People and modern weapons" are what Ukraine needs to defend its air space, Vasyl told AFP. The teams get little sleep – two hours on average, or four on a good night, and perhaps another one between drone waves, Vasyl said, adding that the deprivation takes a physical toll. One serviceman with another air defence unit in the eastern Donetsk region, who goes by Wolf, told AFP he has problems sleeping anyway due to grim memories he has fighting in east Ukraine. Belyi who works alongside Wolf was assigned to the unit regiment after he sustained a concussion and a shell blew off part of his hand while he was fighting in eastern Ukraine. Both were miners in eastern Ukraine before Moscow invaded. Russian drones are threatening their families in the city of Kryvyi Rig, in the neighbouring region further west. Neither has been granted leave to visit home in more than two years and they are instead working around the clock, seven days a week. Back near Pavlograd, sunrise reveals dark circles under the soldiers' eyes, but the buzz of a new drone wave emerges from the horizon. The unit's anti-aircraft gun fires one volley of tracer rounds, then jams. The team grabs WWII-era machine guns and fire blindly in the air. Another drone in the Russian arsenal is the Gerbera, once an unarmed decoy used to overwhelm air defence systems that have since been fitted with cameras and are targeting Vasyl's team. "Only fools are not afraid. Really," he said. On his phone he showed an image of his two blond-haired children who are now living in the capital Kyiv – also under escalating bombardments.
