STORY: S. Korea's court holds 7th hearing of Yoon's impeachment trial, with Yoon present
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 11, 2025
DATELINE: Feb. 11, 2025
LENGTH: 0:01:12
LOCATION: Seoul
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Yoon Suk-yeol arriving at the Constitutional Court by vehicle (Xinhua/Yonhap)
2. various of Yoon Suk-yeol at the hearing  (Xinhua/Yonhap)
3. various of Lee Sang-min, former interior minister, at the hearing (provided by the Constitutional Court)
4. various of Yoon Suk-yeol leaving the Constitutional Court (Xinhua/Yonhap)
5. various of Yoon Suk-yeol returning to the Seoul detention center by vehicle (provided by Seoul Transport Operation & Information Service)

STORYLINE:

South Korea's constitutional court on Tuesday held the seventh hearing of impeachment trial on President Yoon Suk-yeol, with the arrested president being present for the fifth time.
   
Yoon, dressed in a suit and red necktie as before, presented himself at the courtroom in central Seoul at around 10:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).
   
Yoon said in the hearing that he made an emergency martial law declaration and took follow-up measures with the authority of the president guaranteed under the constitution.
   
The martial law can be imposed when the country faces "a state of war, serious incident or other comparable national emergency" that leads to engagement with the enemy or extreme disturbance of social order.
   
The opposition bloc denounced Yoon for unconstitutionally imposing martial law as no sign of national emergency was detected at the time of Yoon's declaration.
   
Yoon told the court justices that no one was dragged out or arrested while no one was suppressed or attacked by soldiers when the martial law was declared on the night of Dec. 3 last year and was lifted by the opposition-led National Assembly hours later.
   
Throughout the midnight hours of the short-lived martial law imposition, military helicopters landed at the National Assembly and hundreds of armed special forces troops broke into the parliamentary building, TV footage showed.
   
During the previous hearing, Col. Kim Hyun-tae, chief of the Army Special Warfare Command's 707th Special Mission Group, stressed that when the special forces tussled with citizens inside and outside the National Assembly building, the troops only defended, not attacked, as they felt a lot of shame.
   
Yoon repeatedly claimed that he ordered then defense minister and the martial law commander to withdraw troops from the National Assembly and other targets.
   
However, Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-keun, former chief of the Army Special Warfare Command, said in the previous hearing that he was never given any withdrawal orders by Yoon or the defense minister.
   
Lee Sang-min, former interior minister, told the justices that he was never given any orders by Yoon to cut off power and water to left-leaning media outlets, including MBC, JTBC, Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang Shinmun, as well as local pollster Flower Research.
   
Lee's testimony was in contrast to the prosecution's indictment showing that Yoon gave such orders to Lee around midnight of Dec. 3 last year.
   
The eighth and final hearing was scheduled to be held on Thursday, though the constitutional court could designate additional hearing dates.
   
The motion to impeach Yoon was passed through the National Assembly on Dec. 14 last year and was delivered to the constitutional court to deliberate it for up to 180 days, during which Yoon's presidential power is suspended.
   
Yoon was apprehended in the presidential office on Jan. 15, becoming the country's first sitting president to be arrested.
   
Yoon, who was named as a suspected ringleader of insurrection, was indicted under detention on Jan. 26, becoming the country's first incumbent president to be put on trial in custody.
   
Yoon was accused of conspiring with the former defense minister, who had already been indicted under detention, to declare unconstitutional, illegal martial law and dispatch armed forces into the National Assembly.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Seoul.
(XHTV)