The standoff between investigators and the Presidential Security Service persisted for hours on Friday, as officials attempted to access President Yoon Suk Yeol's official residential building to detain him on suspicion of insurrection.
The investigators were also involved in a standoff with armed forces controlled by the Presidential Security Services, not the military, who were blocking their entry to the official residence. However, the investigators managed to reach the residence building, which is considered the final guard line of the presidential bodyguards. According to reports, the warrant was presented by CIO officials, but the head of the security office refused to allow a search.
Some 50 officials of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials and police combined entered the presidential residence compound at around 8:03 a.m.
They were initially impeded by some 20 presidential bodyguards, who eventually allowed the investigators to enter the compound after a standoff lasting less than an hour.
If the joint investigation team -- comprising the CIO, police and the Defense Ministry -- manages to detain Yoon on Friday, they will be given 48 hours to question him. To detain him longer, they would need to apply for a new warrant, which would give them 20 additional days to keep him under arrest.
At around 7:20 a.m., some 150 investigators of the CIO and the police together arrived at the official residence. Vehicles carrying the investigators made its way through to the front of Yoon's residence, passing through police cordons controlling the road.
Some 2,800 police officers had been dispatched to the streets near Yoon's residence to control the situation.
The investigators left CIO headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province at 6:14 a.m. for Yoon's residence.
This came as the Seoul Western District Court on Tuesday issued a warrant effective until Monday against Yoon, who declared martial law and allegedly attempted to arrest his political opponents earlier in December.
On Thursday, as Yoon's arrest warrant was issued, some 10,000 people rallied near Yoon's residence as some of the supporters attempted to hamper the authorities' attempts to take Yoon into custody.
