South Korea's former president Yoon defies summons in martial law probe
Yoon was ousted in April by the Constitutional Court, which upheld his impeachment by parliament for a martial law bid that shocked a country that had prided itself on becoming a thriving democracy after overcoming military dictatorship in the 1980s.
Through his lawyers, Yoon, a powerful former top prosecutor elected president in 2022, has accused the special counsel of going on a politically-motivated "witch hunt," describing as illegal some of the tactics used against him.
On Monday, Yoon's lawyers said July 5 was the earliest he would be able to appear, citing a trial court hearing on insurrection charges set for Thursday that he must attend and his rights as a defendant to rest and prepare.
A spokesperson for the special prosecutor's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Media reported the team has said it will issue another summons for this week.
Yoon has been locked in an unprecedented wrangle with authorities over the investigation by the special counsel appointed in June, which ratcheted up prior efforts by state prosecutors and police to investigate his martial law attempt.
During Yoon's first appearance on Saturday, questioning was interrupted for several hours after he objected to procedures he said violated his rights.
The special prosecutor has said the team would consider action under the criminal code, which analysts and media say probably means an arrest, though the team did not confirm that.
Analysts and some members of Yoon's conservative People Power Party have questioned his intentions, since he was a lead prosecutor in the 2017 graft investigation and prosecution of former President Park Geun-hye.
Two other special prosecutors were appointed in June to sift accusations of wrongdoing by Yoon's wife and obstruction by the presidential office of an investigation into the death of a marine in 2023.
(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park, Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
11 minutes ago
- The Star
France must better regulate private Catholic schools, lawmakers say after abuse scandal
FILE PHOTO: A view shows the school Le Beau Rameau, formerly known as the Notre-Dame de Betharram institution, a French Catholic college-high school, in Lestelle-Betharram, near Pau, France, February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Alexandre Dimou/File Photo PARIS (Reuters) -France must better regulate private schools and allow prosecutions for abuse of pupils whenever it was committed, two lawmakers said in a report published on Wednesday after allegations of decades of abuse at a Catholic school. The parliamentary investigation into French schools was triggered by dozens of complaints of physical and sexual abuse by staff and religious members from former pupils of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where many pupils lived on site during term. "Aside from the women serving us food at the canteen, everyone was part of the violence," the report quotes Didier Vinson, a former pupil of Betharram, in the southwest of the country, as saying. Other former pupils and ex-students from other schools also recounted similar experiences and accounts of physical violence and sexual abuse in the report. Prime Minister François Bayrou's eldest daughter, who was a pupil in Betharram, in April described being violently hit by a now-deceased priest at the school in the 1980s. In total, some 250 complaints have been filed against at least 26 alleged perpetrators, the report said. At least 90 of the complaints concern sexual abuse by at least 15 perpetrators. Management at the school, which has been renamed Le Beau Rameau, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is not known to have commented publicly on the allegations. The allegations have taken on a political dimension, with Bayrou, a former education minister and a prominent politician in the region where the school is located, accused by opponents of lying when he said he did not know about the scandal. His daughter, Helene Perlant, said she had not told her father until the week her allegations were published in Paris Match. Bayrou has repeatedly rejected any wrongdoing, saying he had not been aware of the abuse. REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS The report's authors, Paul Vannier from the hard left France Unbowed and Violette Spillebout, from President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party, now plan to work on draft legislation that would scrap the statute of limitations for abuse against minors. Vannier said he also wants parliament to act against Bayrou, whom he accused of lying. Many of the Betharram complaints concern alleged abuse committed as far back as the 1950s. The statute of limitations is currently 30 years for rape and 10 years for sexual assault. "This report makes a damning observation, that of a major failure of the state in the control and prevention of violence in schools," Vannier told a news conference. The lawmakers wrote in their report that the situation was worse in private, Catholic schools. They cited "an explicitly stricter educational model" and a "particularly pervasive code of silence". There are about 2 million pupils in Catholic schools in France. French state-run schools are secular under France's constitutional separation of religion and state. Most of the country's private schools are Catholic. The lawmakers want the state to create a compensation fund for victims and acknowledge its responsibility for what they say were insufficient checks on what was going on within private schools, and in particular boarding schools. Among the measures they call for are regular, unannounced inspections of all schools and enhanced training for all school staff on detecting and handling abuse. They say inspections in private schools, unlike for public schools, are way too rare. Asked to comment on the report, government spokesperson Sophie Primas expressed her solidarity with the victims but did not say what new policies the government could adopt. Alain Esquerre, a whistleblower in the Betharram case and a spokesperson for the victims, welcomed the report's findings. "Over the decades, this school did anything and everything with the children," he told RTL radio on Wednesday. (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Ingrid Melander;Editing by Alison Williams)
The Star
11 minutes ago
- The Star
France's Le Pen hands Bayrou a lifeline, but budget will test her patience
French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou and ministers pose for a family photo in the gardens of the Elysee Palace before the weekly cabinet meeting in Paris, France, July 2, 2025. REUTERS/Tom Nicholson PARIS (Reuters) -French far right leader Marine Le Pen may have decided to let Prime Minister Francois Bayrou survive this time round, but his days might be numbered. Bayrou survived his eighth no-confidence motion on Tuesday, after a truce struck with the Socialists collapsed over his failure to soften France's pensions reform but Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) declined to join the mutiny. Together, the RN and left-wing lawmakers have the numbers to topple the government. Although RN lawmakers, the biggest bloc in parliament, allowed Bayrou to fight another day, their benevolence is unlikely to last long. Le Pen's troops have made it clear that budget talks this autumn will be crunch time for Bayrou, who is struggling to push 40 billion euros in savings through a divided parliament to lower the euro zone's largest deficit and appease increasingly alarmed investors and EU beancounters. "Voting a motion of no-confidence would be a very bad signal to ratings agencies and the IMF. It would be extremely damaging for the country," former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, now the education minister in Bayrou's government, told Reuters. Boosted by their newfound power over Bayrou's future, the RN is making ever stricter budgetary demands that are virtually impossible for him to meet. During last year's budget, Le Pen orchestrated the ouster of Bayrou's predecessor Michel Barnier after he refused to respect just one of her four budgetary red Vallaud, the lower house Socialists' leader, said Bayrou's chances of making it to year's end were "very small." RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy was less emphatic, saying: "It'll depend on the budget." A June 30 Ifop poll showed Bayrou, never popular, now has an 80% disapproval rating, his worst yet. He will present an outline of his 2026 budget by mid-July, with the text unveiled in late-September. A Bayrou aide said it was too soon to write him off: "I wouldn't underestimate Bayrou's ability to find compromises." CALCULATIONS RN sources told Reuters Le Pen believes it will be less costly to topple Bayrou in the autumn than now, when the geopolitical situation is fraught. The RN itself is also less unified than it was, after Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement in March, knocking her out of the 2027 presidential race. She aims to overturn her ban, but it has raised the profile of her No. 2, Jordan Bardella, the party president, who will run in 2027 if she cannot. Bardella, who is increasingly showing signs of independence from Le Pen, is keen to push the party towards a more fiscally conservative position and shed some of Le Pen's more socially-minded cost-of-living measures, one RN source said. The source said the RN's 2025 red lines will be maintained and even hardened, by refusing any tax rises in the 2026 budget. Previously it had tolerated tax increases for the wealthiest. The party has also hardened its position on French energy policy, turning against renewables and making nuclear energy a symbol of French national pride that it wants to turn into a key plank of its industrial manifesto. The RN could even file a no-confidence motion if Bayrou decides to bypass parliament to pass a multi-year energy plan by decree. "That would be a casus belli," the source said. In private, Le Pen's lawmakers say they would cast a favourable eye on Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who they see as closer to their line on law and order, as a possible successor to Bayrou. From July 8, Macron can dissolve parliament again and call fresh legislative he may be wary of plunging France back into chaos at a time of multiple global conflicts and economic uncertainty stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump's trade wars. Dissolving parliament would have the benefit of dislodging Le Pen from her parliamentary seat, but many Macron allies think a new election would be ill-advised, with opinion polls showing the RN and Bardella more popular than ever. "The chances of getting a more governable Assembly than the current one are close to zero," Borne warned. (Writing by Michel RoseEditing by Peter Graff)
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Sean 'Diddy' Combs jury to resume deliberations after partial verdict
Sean "Diddy" Combs and his attorney Marc Agnifilo discuss how to respond to a new note sent by jurors, during Combs' sex trafficking trial in New York City, New York, U.S., July 1, 2025 in this courtroom sketch. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg NEW YORK (Reuters) -The jury in Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial will continue deliberations on Wednesday, a day after reaching a verdict on four of the five counts the music mogul faces in his sex trafficking case but failing to agree on a racketeering conspiracy charge. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said on Tuesday the jury had reached a verdict on the two counts of sex trafficking and two of transportation to engage in prostitution faced by Combs, a former billionaire known forelevating hip-hop in American culture. The judge did not reveal the verdict on those counts. Subramanian instructed the 12-member jury to keep deliberating about the racketeering count after the panel sent him a note indicating jurors had "unpersuadable opinions on both sides." Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to all five felony counts. He faces a mandatory 15-year prison sentence if convicted of sex trafficking. A guilty verdict on either that charge or the racketeering conspiracy count could result in up to a life sentence. Jurors must be unanimous to reach a verdict on any count. After reading the note the jury sent Subramanian, Combs appeared emotional, rubbing his eyes and resting his face against his palm while seated at the defense table with his lawyers huddled around him. Over the course of a seven-week trial in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors sought to persuade jurors thatCombs for two decades used his business empire to force two of his romantic partners to take part in drug-fueled, days-long sexual performances sometimes known as "Freak Offs" with male sex workers in hotel rooms while Combs watched, masturbated and occasionally filmed. Two of Combs' former romantic partners, the rhythm and blues singer Casandra "Cassie" Ventura and a woman known in court by the pseudonym Jane, testified that he beat them and threatened to cut off financial support or leak sex tapes if they stopped taking part in the performances. Combs' lawyersacknowledged that the Bad Boy Records founder, once famed for hosting lavish parties for the cultural elite in luxurious locales like the Hamptons and Saint-Tropez, was at times violent in his domestic relationships. But they said the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual. The apparent discord among the jurors had echoes of the sometimes fractious deliberations in movie producer Harvey Weinstein's trial in June on sex crime charges in New York state court in Manhattan, just across the street from where Diddy is on trial. Jurors spent five days deliberating Weinstein's fate, with some acrimony directed toward the foreman. They eventually convicted Weinstein of one felony sex crime but deadlocked on a rape charge, leading to a mistrial on that count. A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE? To convict Combs of racketeering conspiracy, prosecutors would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was part of a criminal enterprise consisting of his employees and other associates whose aim was in part to facilitate his sexual abuse and keep evidence of wrongdoing under wraps. Jurors heard testimony from Combs' formerpersonal assistantswho said their jobs included setting up hotel rooms for "Freak Offs" and buying their boss drugs. An InterContinental security guard testified that Combs, in the presence of his chief of staff, paid him $100,000 tohand overwhat he thought was the only copy of the surveillance tape of his attack on Ventura. And Scott Mescudi, the rapper known asKid Cudi, told jurors Combs was likely involved in an arson on his car after Combs found out he was romantically involved with Ventura. The defense argued Combs was a successful entrepreneur who used drugs recreationally, but kept his professional and personal lives separate. Combs has been held in federal lockup in Brooklyn since his September 2024 arrest. (Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
