South Korea | Former President Yoon still holed up in hillside “fortress”

(Seoul) On the heights of the Hannam district stands a cold building bristling with barbed wire, its entrance blocked by vehicles. The “fortress” is none other than the residence of deposed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, under arrest warrant.

It is here, in the center of Seoul, that the former prosecutor is believed to be entrenched, having not appeared in public for weeks.

It is therefore here, too, that investigators with a warrant tried for the first time to arrest him, without success, blocked by the Presidential Security Service (PSS).

Yoon Suk Yeol, suspended since his dismissal by the National Assembly on December 14, was still taking refuge there at the start of the week, according to the Yonhap agency, citing the police. The head of investigators said for his part he was considering “several possibilities”.

In any case, the residence “is turning into a fortress,” denounced opposition MP Youn Kun-young.

Barbed wire

An AFP journalist saw guards walking behind rows of buses and the entrance gates bristling with barbed wire on Wednesday.

Investigators obtained a second warrant and this time will be able to count on the help of the police, who said they would apprehend any bodyguard trying to resist the arrest.

Yoon Suk Yeol is being targeted by justice for his failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3, a coup that reminded South Korea of ​​the dark hours of military dictatorship more than forty years ago.

In a Parliament surrounded by soldiers, a sufficient number of deputies quickly managed to vote on a text to defeat his plan, while thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators shouted their indignation outside.

Yoon Suk Yeol’s home is in Hannam, an upscale neighborhood in central Seoul, on the banks of the Han River.

There are some of the most expensive homes in South Korea, embassies and even, according to press reports, the homes of superstars from the k-pop group BTS.

Mr. Yoon set his sights on this popular corner of Yongsan, a district where Japanese troops during the colonial period (1910-1945), but also American troops after the Second World War, had established their base.

When investigators showed up at his house on Friday, they found themselves confronted by some 200 soldiers and bodyguards who blocked their way, forming a human chain. The operation was called off after about six hours of tense face-to-face confrontation.

Chaman et feng shui

Shortly after his inauguration in 2022, Yoon Suk Yeol left his bags in his current residence with his wife Kim Keon-hee, refusing to live in the traditional palace of heads of state, the Blue House.

As the residence, with the colored tiles from which it takes its name, embodies, according to him, the excess of the emperors.

He thus became the first South Korean leader not to settle there, opening the place to the public.

Yoon Suk Yeol then had to deny having been advised by a shaman, with the opposition claiming that he had also listened to feng shui masters warning him that the Blue House attracted the evil eye.

The harshest criticism, however, focused on the cost of the move and the number of officers left behind while, at the end of 2022, 159 people died in a stampede in the neighboring district of Itaewon during a Halloween party where police was outnumbered.

The Presidential Security Service then claimed that it was a separate entity from the police and therefore did not have to help them.

Mr. Yoon’s guards and lawyers argue that the property is a military perimeter where state secrets are hidden and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which has led the arrest attempt.

The residence is such a sensitive area that Yoon Suk Yeol’s office filed a complaint against a YouTuber accused of filming Kim Keon-hee walking her dog there.

The presidential office, located elsewhere in Seoul, has a bunker where the head of state can take refuge in the event of a North Korean attack or other major disaster. The Defense Ministry refuses to say whether Mr. Yoon’s personal home is equipped with a similar facility.

Despite the uncertainties, IOC head Oh Dong-woon assured that he and his team would do “everything in (their) power” to stop it.