As president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol lived in an opulent hilltop mansion, threw events and had a small military of non-public guards. Lately, he’s alone in a 107-square-foot jail cell, consuming easy meals like noodles and kimchi soup, and sleeping on the ground.
This will probably be his new actuality for some time but, after he was formally arrested on riot expenses early Sunday as a part of an investigation into his ill-fated declaration of martial legislation final month.
Mr. Yoon, 64, has been within the Seoul Detention Middle, a government-run jail south of Seoul, since Wednesday, when he grew to become the first sitting president in South Korean historical past to be detained in a legal investigation. When a district court docket in Seoul issued the warrant to arrest him, he went from being a short lived detainee to a legal suspect dealing with an indictment and trial.
That change in standing meant that Mr. Yoon was unlikely to go away jail any time quickly. Inside the subsequent 18 days, legal investigators and prosecutors have been anticipated to indict him on expenses of main an riot during his short-lived martial law final month. If he’s convicted, he’ll face life imprisonment or the demise penalty.
Mr. Yoon’s new circumstances have been symbolic of his dramatic fall from grace: from a swaggering head of state to an impeached president to an inmate accused of committing one of many worst offenses in South Korea’s legal code. He’s the primary South Korean to face riot expenses because the former army dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was convicted within the Nineteen Nineties.
As president, Mr. Yoon cherished to throw events, typically inviting like-minded politicians to night drinks and even cooking and serving rolled egg and barbecue to his presidential press corps. He confirmed off his well-honed entertaining abilities overseas when he belted out “American Pie” throughout a White Home dinner in 2023.
Now, Mr. Yoon will get up to not presidential aides and cooks catering to his wants, however to a easy jail breakfast often made up of dumpling soup, bread or cereals. A median meal in jail prices $1.20.
The dramatic political upheaval he unleashed seems to have shocked him as a lot as on a regular basis South Koreans.
“Mockingly, it was after I used to be impeached that I really realized that I’m, certainly, the president,” Mr. Yoon said in a lengthy statement on Wednesday.
Many South Korean politicians and dignitaries — together with two former presidents and Lee Jae-yong, the top of the Samsung conglomerate — have been held on the Seoul Detention Middle in Uiwang, a metropolis south of Seoul. When he was a prosecutor, Mr. Yoon helped put one of many two former presidents, Park Geun-hye, there on corruption expenses. The jail additionally holds among the nation’s most notorious demise row inmates, together with serial killers.
Authorities officers mentioned Mr. Yoon would get no particular therapy, besides that he can be stored in a room of his personal, away from different detainees and inmates. After his formal arrest, he was anticipated to undergo a easy medical checkup and obtain a toothbrush and different requirements for jail life. He can be assigned an inmate quantity and a pea-green jail uniform.
His cell can have a TV set, a sink, a small cabinet, a studying desk that doubles as a dinner desk, and a foldable mattress for sleeping. The cell has a rest room however no bathe. The house will probably be monitored across the clock by means of closed-circuit tv.
Mr. Yoon has been an avid follower of right-wing YouTubers who supported his authorities and spread conspiracy theories that depicted his home enemies as harmful sympathizers with North Korea and China. Since he declared martial legislation on Dec. 3, Mr. Yoon has mentioned his motion was impressed partly by the identical worry, indignation and suspicions unfold by the extremists on YouTube.
The jail TV reveals solely applications licensed by the Ministry of Justice. Inmates have no entry to the web, together with YouTube. At rallies calling for Mr. Yoon’s arrest in current weeks, some protesters held indicators that learn: “Yoon Suk Yeol: It’s time for a digital detox!”
Yang Kyeung-soo, a labor union chief who had hung out in a solitary cell within the Seoul Detention Middle, posted jail survival recommendations on X. “You need to discover ways to save heat water since you wash your individual dishes. In case you eat every thing they serve, you’ll achieve weight shortly.”
Mr. Yoon was anticipated to fulfill incessantly along with his attorneys in a visiting space to arrange for his trials. Individually, the nation’s Constitutional Courtroom is deliberating whether or not the Nationwide Meeting’s vote on Dec. 14 to question him was respectable and if he ought to be formally faraway from workplace.
Mr. Yoon’s martial legislation lasted solely six hours as a result of the opposition-dominated Nationwide Meeting voted it down. However throughout that transient interval, he ordered army commanders to seize the Meeting and arrest his political enemies, based on prosecutors who’ve arrested and indicted the army generals accused of serving to Mr. Yoon commit riot.
Mr. Yoon and his legal professionals insisted that his imposition of martial legislation was a respectable use of presidential energy.
After they detained Mr. Yoon on Wednesday, officers from the nation’s Corruption Investigation Workplace For Excessive-ranking Officers questioned him till he was despatched to relaxation in a cell on the Seoul Detention Middle. However he has since refused to go away his cell to face extra questioning.
“He made his primary positions identified throughout the first day of questioning, and he not feels a motive or have to topic himself to a question-and-answer kind of interrogation,” mentioned one among his legal professionals, Seok Dong-hyeon.
When Ms. Park, the previous president, was held within the detention middle, die-hard supporters gathered close to its partitions each morning and shouted “Good morning, President Park Geun-hye!”
Since Mr. Yoon’s arrival, some supporters have camped outdoors, calling his impeachment and his arrest “null and void.”
