South Korean police tried to search President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office on Wednesday but have not been able to enter the main building, Yonhap news reported as an investigation into the U.S. ally’s decision to declare martial law widened.
The attempt to search the presidential office significantly escalates the investigation against Yoon and top police and military officers over the Dec. 3 martial law declaration that plunged the country with Asia’s fourth-largest economy into a constitutional crisis.
Yoon is now the subject of a criminal investigation into insurrection allegations and is banned from leaving the country, but he has not been arrested or questioned by authorities.
A presidential security service official said earlier on Wednesday that the police raid of Yoon’s office was under way, confirming media reports at the time. Yonhap later said investigators at the presidential compound had not yet entered the main building.
Yonhap said police had not managed to agree with the Secret Service on the method of the seizure and search. Police declined to comment.
“We are responding based on the law and past government cases,” a presidential office official said denied that the office was opposing the search.
Former Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun, a close confidant of Yoon, and two senior police officers including the national police chief have been arrested on charges of insurrection as part of the investigation.
Kim attempted suicide using a shirt and underwear late on Tuesday night at a detention centre where he is being held, a Justice Ministry official told parliament.
He was now under observation and his life was not in danger, the official added.
Kim has resigned and apologised for his part in the short-lived imposition of emergency rule, saying he alone was responsible.
Soon after Yoon’s late-night declaration of martial law, lawmakers including some members of his own party voted to demand the president immediately rescind the order, which he did hours later.
