South Korea Fails to Detain Impeached President in Standoff at His Home

Blocked by bodyguards, officials retreated after several hours without serving a court warrant to hold President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning on insurrection charges.

When around 100 criminal investigators and police officers entered a hilly compound in central Seoul on Friday morning, they tried to achieve something that has never been done before in South Korea: detain a sitting president.

First, they made it through two blockades formed by parked vehicles and people. Then, when they came within 650 feet of the building where President Yoon Suk Yeol was believed to be holed up, they came face to face with an even more formidable barrier: 10 buses and cars along with 200 elite soldiers and bodyguards belonging to Mr. Yoon’s Presidential Security Service. Small scuffles erupted as the investigators tried in vain to break through and serve a court-issued warrant to take Mr. Yoon away.

Three prosecutors were allowed to approach the building. But there, Mr. Yoon’s lawyers told them that they could not serve the warrant because it was “illegally” issued, according to officials who briefed news media about what happened inside the compound.

Outnumbered, the 100 officials retreated after a five-and-a-half-hour standoff.

“It’s deeply regrettable,” the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, the independent government agency that led the raid into the presidential compound on Friday, said in a statement. It accused Mr. Yoon — who has already been suspended from office after being impeached by Parliament last month — of refusing to honor a court-issued warrant. “We will discuss what our next step should be.”

The failure to bring in the deeply unpopular president deepened a growing sense of helplessness among South Koreans, exacerbated by the country’s sharply polarized politics. The nation appears rudderless and distracted by infighting at a time when it faces major challenges at home and on the international scene.