On Tuesday, the chief of South Korea’s anti-corruption investigative agency apologised for last week’s failure to arrest the impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law imposition.

Oh Dong-woon, head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, said in a parliamentary session of the legislation and judiciary committee that he sincerely apologised.

He apologised to South Koreans for the botched attempt to execute the arrest warrant against Mr Yoon, which was blocked by the presidential security service.

Mr Dong-woon stressed that the bungled execution of the warrant, legitimately issued by the judiciary, undermined the rule of law, vowing to make the best efforts to make thorough preparations and proceed with the warrant without setbacks.

The CIO formed a joint investigation unit with the National Office of Investigation and the defence ministry’s investigative headquarters to investigate Mr Yoon’s martial law imposition.

The unit requested the Seoul Western District Court to extend the arrest warrant against Mr Yoon on Monday after failing to detain him last Friday.

The CIO investigators and police officers attempted to arrest the impeached president in the presidential residence on January 3.

They failed as the presidential security service blocked the execution of the arrest warrant, which expired at midnight Monday.

The impeachment motion against Mr Yoon was passed in the National Assembly on December 14, 2024, and was delivered to the constitutional court to deliberate it for up to 180 days.

This took place during the suspension of Mr Yoon’s presidential power.

Mr Yoon, who investigative agencies named as a suspected ringleader on an insurrection charge, declared martial law on the night of December 3.

But it was revoked by the National Assembly hours later.

(Xinhua/NAN)