Yonhap news agency says South Korean prosecutors have indicted the impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his imposition of martial law.

CRIMINAL

South Korean court orders formal arrest of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived martial law decree.

South Korean prosecutors have charged impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol with insurrection after his failed attempt to impose martial law in December, which plunged the country into political turmoil.

Yoon's attempt to suspend civilian rule on December 3 caused political chaos in Korea, but lawmakers defied armed soliders in parliament to vote it down.

After lawyers of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol argued that his arrest on January 15 was unlawful, a photo spread in social media posts falsely claiming it showed a search warrant used to illegally detain him rather than an arrest warrant.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’s Office accused Yoon Suk Yeol of being the “ringleader of an insurrection”

The Constitutional Court is separately deliberating whether to formally dismiss Yoon Suk Yeol as president or reinstate him. Yoon was impeached and suspended by the assembly last month.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has become the country's first leader to be indicted, less than two weeks after he was the first to be detained. The impeached, jailed president, who had been holed up in his presidential compound for weeks after issuing a shocking martial law decree last month,