Will the South Korean Court Issue an Arrest Warrant for Ex-President Yoon on Wednesday?

Seoul, July 7 (NationPress) A court hearing regarding the potential issuance of an arrest warrant for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, stemming from his actions during the martial law bid, is set for later this week, as announced on Monday.

The Seoul Central District Court has arranged the hearing for 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, following a request by special counsel Cho Eun-suk for an arrest warrant made the day before.

Yoon intends to participate in the hearing personally, where he will present his defense before the court makes a decision on the warrant, expected later that same day or early the following morning.

Cho's team is pursuing Yoon's arrest on several charges linked to the martial law bid from December, which includes allegations that he instructed the Presidential Security Service to prevent his detention by investigators in January.

Additionally, Yoon is accused of violating the rights of Cabinet members by convening only a select group for a meeting before he announced martial law on December 3. He also allegedly directed his aides to draft a second document containing the declaration days after the event to rectify legal deficiencies in the initial document.

The special counsel has interrogated the former president twice and submitted the arrest warrant request on Sunday, citing the severity of his alleged offenses and concerns that he might tamper with evidence or flee, based on a document obtained by Yonhap News Agency.

Deputy special counsel Park Ji-young expressed to the media on Monday the team's serious concern regarding a potential leak of information to the press regarding the warrant.

Park indicated that the team holds Yoon's legal representatives accountable for the alleged leak and intends to address it stringently in line with applicable laws following a police investigation.

"Leaking personal registration numbers is a serious offense, and disclosing testimonies from the investigation to the media adversely affects the speakers' mental state, potentially interfering with the investigation," she stated.

If the court grants the warrant, it will mark the second instance of the former president being detained; the first occurrence was in January when he was still in office.

Yoon was also present at the previous arrest warrant hearing, according to reports from Yonhap News Agency.

Beyond the charges already mentioned, the special counsel is also probing claims that Yoon ordered military drones to be dispatched to Pyongyang last October to provoke North Korea, using this incident as a pretext for declaring martial law.