The decision makes Yoon the first Korean president to be indicted while still in office.
As prosecutors filed the indictment before the warrant expired, Yoon will remain in detention for the time being.
Over a three-hour meeting at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, Shim listened to the opinions of other senior prosecutors before reaching his decision.
Park Se-hyun, who is leading the prosecution’s special investigative team working on the case, told reporters after the meeting that Shim heard various opinions regarding how the service should proceed regarding Yoon.
Park said the prosecutor general would make his decision “after taking all opinions into account.”
Though prosecutors sought twice to extend Yoon’s detention until Feb. 6 to allow them time to question him directly, the Seoul Central District Court declined to grant both requests.
In its first rejection on Friday night, the court said it is “difficult to discern a valid reason” to continue questioning Yoon in custody after control over the case was transferred by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) to the prosecution.
The court again refused to extend Yoon’s detainment on Saturday for “similar reasons” it had given the day before.
As a criminal suspect must be released if they are not indicted before the expiry of their arrest warrant, prosecutors were forced to choose between releasing Yoon or indicting him without being able to question him themselves.
If the indictment is accepted by the court, prosecutors will have rely on evidence gathered to date by the CIO during Yoon’s trial.
Yoon has been held at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi, since being taken into custody by CIO investigators at his official residence in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Jan. 15.
CIO officials repeatedly tried to question the impeached president, but he refused to attend all interrogations scheduled by the agency except for the one that took place the same day he was detained.
Even then, he refused to answer almost all of their questions.
The CIO consequently determined that transferring control of the probe instead of trying to question the president would allow prosecutors to investigate his decision to declare martial law and bring an indictment against him.
Only the state prosecution service has the power to indict a president.
In referring the case to prosecutors, the CIO also transferred all materials pertaining to the investigation, which thus far has amounted to more than 30,000 pages across 69 books.
Yoon, on his part, has denied all of the accusations against him.
He simultaneously claimed that he lawfully exercised his right to declare martial law to unmask “antistate forces” working for North Korea and that the actual decree was drafted by other people, including his former defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun.
Kim testified before the Constitutional Court on Thursday that he drafted the decree based on old templates and that its most controversial provisions were his doing.
