South Korea’s President Yoon defends martial law call at impeachment trial

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has rejected allegations at his impeachment trial that he ordered members of the military to drag lawmakers out of the National Assembly during last month’s short-lived martial law.

Yoon, 64, told the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Tuesday that he had worked in public service with “a firm commitment to free democracy”.

He was then moved to a military hospital, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The impeached president has been incarcerated since last week under separate criminal charges of leading an insurrection through his attempt to enact martial law in early December, a move that shocked the nation and was overturned within hours by the National Assembly.

Yoon said at the hearing that special forces soldiers sent to the legislature on December 3 were not there to disable the National Assembly or prevent it from blocking his martial law because he knew such an action would have led to an indefensible crisis.

“In this country, parliament and news media are far more powerful than the president, in a far superior position,” he told the court.

If the court rules against Yoon, he would lose the presidency, and an election would be called within 60 days.

His lawyers outlined arguments in defence of Yoon’s martial law declaration, saying it was meant to sound the alarm over abuses committed by the opposition Democratic Party.

They argued the opposition’s actions had paralysed the government and pushed the country’s democratic and constitutional order to the brink of collapse.

“The decree was intended simply to establish the format of martial law and never intended to be executed nor was it possible to execute it because of the potential for conflict with higher-level laws,” lawyer Cha Gi-hwan told the court.

Cha also denied testimony by military commanders involved in the martial law declaration who said Yoon and his top aides ordered the arrests of some members of the legislature who had politically clashed with the president.

The Democratic Party, joined by minority parties and also 12 members of Yoon’s People Power Party, achieved a two-thirds majority vote to impeach Yoon on December 14. The Constitutional Court is now deciding whether to uphold his impeachment.

The lawyers prosecuting the case, who were selected by lawmakers, slammed the comments made by Yoon and his lawyers as “largely contradictory, irrational and unclear, making them entirely incomprehensible”.

“If they continue to evade responsibility as they did today, it will only work against them in the impeachment trial and cause even greater disappointment among the public,” they said on Tuesday.