South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk-yeol may have begun laying the ideological groundwork for a self-coup long before his failed attempt to impose martial law last December, according to newly disclosed legal documents.
Political analysts say the revelations suggest Yoon’s push for emergency rule was not a sudden response to security tensions, but part of a long-standing pattern of authoritarian inclinations dating back to his early political career and even his years as a prosecutor.
Special prosecutors have indicted Yoon on charges of attempting to provoke North Korea to manufacture a justification for martial law.
The indictment asserts that Yoon had already made up his mind to pursue such an extraordinary intervention as early as November 2022, only six months into his presidency.
Yoon is currently in custody on charges of masterminding the martial law imposition, a move critics say was designed to prolong his grip on power rather than address any genuine national crisis.
According to the indictment papers leaked to the press on Tuesday, Yoon told leaders of his People Power Party (PPP) at a dinner in November 2022: “I have emergency power. I will sweep them all away. Even if I end up standing in front of a firing squad, I will wipe them all out.”
