Lawyer Says President Yoon Will Accept Court Decision, Including Removed From His Position

Paspampres South Korea while escorting President Yoon. (Instagram/@presidential_security_service)

JAKARTA - Lawyer Yoon Suk-yeol said the impeached South Korean president would accept the Constitutional Court's decision to try his impeachment, even if he was removed from office.

"So if the decision was a 'revocation', it wouldn't be unacceptable," Yoon's lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun, told a news conference.

The court's ruling, one of the two highest courts in the country along with the Supreme Court, cannot be appealed.

Yoon previously ignored a request by the Constitutional Court to submit a legal file before the court began hearing on December 27. Later, his lawyer said he was willing to attend directly to defend his case.

The suspended president has repeatedly opposed calls under separate criminal investigations on charges of bailing out insurgency with his military emergency efforts on December 3, leading to the issuance of a presidential arrest warrant in office for the first time.

Yoon's lawyer said the president is currently at his official residence in Seoul and looks healthy.

Meanwhile, Seok Dong-hyeon, another lawyer who defended Yoon, said Yoon views his arrest as politically motivated and aims to embarrass him by displaying it in public in a state of handcuffs.

He quoted media reports that the police plan to deploy armored vehicles and helicopters to deploy special police units to the presidential complex in an attempt to arrest Yoon.

Seok said Yoon and his advisers view the ongoing situation as an ideological war between those committed to free democracy and those against it.

"If something goes wrong, what we say is that it could be a civil war," said Seok.

Yoon said he declared martial law to clean up "anti-state forces" that crippled the government's function and threatened democracy.

Yoon's lawyer said the presidential arrest warrant was illegal, as it was issued by a court in the wrong jurisdiction and the Corruption Investigation Office for High Officials (CIO) had no mandate to investigate the president who was in office on charges of insurgency.

On the other hand, prosecutors must indict Yoon if there is evidence or ask for an official detention warrant and then Yoon will cooperate.

Separately, hundreds of protesters who supported Yoon and called for his arrest have hit freezing temperatures in recent days to protest outside his residence.

As of Thursday, the number of protesters had decreased as temperatures fell below minus 10 degrees Celsius, the lowest recorded point of the winter.

Yoon's lawyer said the president was worried about the safety of his supporters protesting outside his residence.

"As you know, the weather has been very cold lately, and it won't end anytime soon. They do it all day long, even late at night, so he (the president) feels very sorry and grateful," the lawyer said.