
The move followed a court ruling that the detention of President Yoon Suk Yeol was invalid, but it won’t affect the insurrection and other charges he faces for declaring martial law.
Yoon Suk Yeol, the impeached South Korean president who is standing trial on insurrection charges over his decision to impose martial law in December, was released from a detention center on Saturday, a day after a court ruled that his detention was invalid.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled on Friday that prosecutors had violated procedural rules by holding Mr. Yoon in detention longer than legally allowed before indicting him in January. The procedural violation rendered Mr. Yoon’s detention invalid, the court said.
Prosecutors, who had a week to appeal the decision, requested instead that he be released.
Mr. Yoon smiled broadly and waved at supporters as he walked out of a detention center south of Seoul, where he had been held since Jan. 15. He clenched his fist in a victorious gesture and bowed toward hundreds of supporters who had gathered outside the jail, waving national flags and shouting, “Yoon Suk Yeol!”
His release does not affect the insurrection charge he faces in a Seoul criminal court related to his martial law declaration, or the separate proceedings at the Constitutional Court. That body is deliberating whether his parliamentary impeachment was legitimate, and if he should be formally removed from office. But it does mean that he will be free while standing trial.
After a short ride from the detention center, Mr. Yoon returned to his presidential residence on a hilltop in central Seoul. As a motorcade carrying Mr. Yoon neared his residence, thousands of supporters lined the street to cheer him. Mr. Yoon briefly got out of his car to shake hands with the supporters, who called his impeachment and the insurrection charge against him a “fraud” engineered by his political enemies.
Mr. Yoon sounded as defiant as ever, calling his legal struggle “a fight to defend the freedom and rule of law in South Korea” and “a resolute standoff against those who want to usurp power by illegal means.”