South korea president

Yoon Suk Yeol has become South Korea's first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody. Yoon, 64, is being investigated on charges of insurrection for a failed martial law order on 3 December that plunged the country into turmoil.

South korea president kim

He has also been impeached by parliament and suspended - but will only be removed from office if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment. However, Yoon's dramatic arrest on Wednesday brings to an end a weeks-long standoff between investigators and his presidential security team. Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials CIO failed to arrest him on 3 January after being locked in a six-hour stand-off with his security detail.

But just before dawn on Wednesday, a much larger team of investigators and police arrived at his residence in central Seoul, armed with ladders to climb over buses blocking its entrance and bolt cutters to remove barbed wire. Other officers in the arrest team, which numbered around 1,, scaled walls and hiked up nearby trails to reach the presidential residence.

After several hours, authorities announced that Yoon had been arrested. In a three-minute video released just before his arrest, the year-old leader said he would co-operate with the investigators, while repeating previous claims that the warrant was not legally valid. On Wednesday afternoon, investigators said Yoon had remained silent throughout questioning.

Yoon's lawyers have said his arrest was "illegal" because the CIO, as an anti-corruption agency, has no power to investigate the insurrection allegations against Yoon.