Yoon’s legal battles intensify as dual hearings loom Feb. 20

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks with his lawyers at the eighth hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, central Seoul, Feb. 13. (Yonhap via The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)

SEOUL — President Yoon Suk Yeol will face two intense legal battles on Thursday when the Seoul Central District Court starts his criminal trial and the Constitutional Court holds another hearing for his impeachment trial on the same day.

The Seoul Central District Court earlier this month said the first preparatory hearing in the criminal trial of the president, indicted on charges of insurrection, is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. Thursday.

While the court will discuss how the trial will proceed in the preparatory hearing, it will also hold a hearing on whether to end Yoon’s detention.

READ: Impeached South Korea president formally arrested over martial law bid

Yoon’s legal team requested that the court rescind his detention on Feb. 4 as the president was indicted on Jan. 26, a day after his initial detention period expired.

The court had seven days to respond to the request in the absence of special circumstances. It decided to review the request in the first preparatory hearing, considering the seriousness of the matter.

According to the Criminal Act, the court must rescind detention at the request of the prosecution (or defendant) if grounds for the detention do not exist or have ceased to exist.

Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court is scheduled to hold an additional hearing on Thursday at 2 p.m., summoning now-suspended Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to testify as a witness in the ongoing impeachment trial.

READ: South Korea’s Yoon impeachment trial: what could happen?

The court rejected Yoon’s request to summon Han on Feb. 11, saying it was unnecessary. However, it reversed the decision after a strong objection from the president’s legal representatives.

Yoon’s lawyers insisted that Han be summoned based on their belief that the prime minister, who retained the full powers of his office at the time, understands the reasons behind the martial law declaration on Dec. 3 last year.

Yoon continues to argue that the martial law decree was the only way to prevent paralysis in state affairs and that he followed appropriate legal procedures, such as holding a Cabinet meeting, in the process of declaring martial law. He is therefore expected to use Han’s testimony to justify his actions.

Han, however, previously testified that he expressed his concerns over the martial law decree, speaking during a Jan. 15 hearing led by the National Assembly’s special committee tasked with investigating allegations of insurrection related to the martial law episode.

Han stated that the martial law declaration “had procedural flaws and was therefore not entirely legitimate” and said he believed it was a mistake.

The hearing will continue by summoning the former First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won and Cho Ji-ho, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency.

In the fifth hearing of the impeachment trial on Feb. 4, Hong testified that the president instructed him to arrest politicians, claiming he wrote down a list of politicians to arrest during a phone call with Yeo In-hyung, the former head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command.

However, because Yeo denied that claim in a separate hearing, Yoon’s legal team requested Hong be summoned to reconfirm his testimony.

Should Cho appear as a witness at the forthcoming hearing for Yoon’s impeachment trial, it will mark his first appearance, as he missed two previous hearings, citing health reasons. Cho has suffered from blood cancer.

However, Yoon’s legal team reportedly requested that the hearing be postponed to Feb. 25, claiming difficulties in responding to both trials simultaneously.

As of Sunday, the Constitutional Court had yet to decide on rescheduling the additional hearing, according to local media outlet Yonhap News Agency.