Yoon said that special forces soldiers who were sent to the National Assembly on December 3 were not there to incapacitate the legislature.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-you dismissed allegations at his impeachment trial Monday that he had ordered military members to drag lawmakers out of the National Assembly during last month’s brief martial law.
Yoon, 64, told the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Tuesday that he had worked in public service with “a firm commitment to free democracy.” The Yonhap news agency reported that he was then moved to a military hospital.
The impeached president has been incarcerated since last week under separate criminal charges of leading an insurrection through his attempt to enact martial law in early December, a move that shocked the nation and was overturned within hours by the National Assembly.
In reply to the claims, Yoon said special forces soldiers sent to the parliament on December 3 were not present to incapacitate the National Assembly or stop its blocking of the martial law proclamation because he thought such an attempt would have inevitably resulted in a crisis that became indefensible to him.
‘In this country, parliament and news media are far more powerful than the president, in a far superior position,” he told the Court.
