Important Takeaways:

• South Korea’s anti-corruption agency said it received a new court warrant Tuesday to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after its previous attempt was blocked by the presidential security service last week.
• The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which plans to question the embattled president on rebellion allegations over his short-lived martial law decree Dec. 3, did not immediately confirm how long the warrant would remain valid.
• The agency’s chief prosecutor, Oh Dong-woon, refused to answer when asked by lawmakers when the warrant would expire, saying such information is sensitive as the agency and police contemplate ways to execute it.
• Detention warrants typically last seven days but can be extended to around 10 days.
• The Seoul Western District Court last week had initially issued a warrant to detain Yoon and a separate warrant to search his residence after he repeatedly defied authorities by refusing to appear for questioning.
• About 150 anti-corruption agency investigators and police officers attempted to detain Yoon on Friday but retreated from his residence in Seoul after a tense standoff with the presidential security service that lasted more than five hours. The investigators did not make another attempt to detain Yoon and the previous court warrants expired after a week on Monday.
• The anti-corruption agency is leading a joint investigation with the police and military into Yoon’s brief power grab, which included declaring martial law and dispatching troops to surround the National Assembly. Lawmakers who managed to get past the blockade voted to lift martial law hours later.
• Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the opposition-dominated Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14, accusing him of rebellion. The Constitutional Court has started deliberations on whether to formally remove Yoon from office or reinstate him.
• Oh confirmed to lawmakers that the agency was debating with police on whether to arrest members of the presidential security staff if they forcefully obstruct efforts to detain Yoon. Police have said they are considering “all available options” to bring Yoon into custody and haven’t publicly ruled out the possibility of deploying SWAT teams, although it is unclear whether investigators would risk escalating a confrontation with presidential security forces, who are also armed.
• Park Jong-joon, chief of the presidential security service, has hit back against criticism that it has become Yoon’s private army, saying it has legal obligations to protect the incumbent president. He and his deputy have so far defied summonses by police, who planned to question them over the suspected obstruction of official duty following Friday’s events.

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