Ex-PM Han, ex-DPM Choi slapped with exit ban in martial law probe

Former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and former Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok have been banned from leaving the country as suspects in the alleged insurrection case related to former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched martial law attempt, police said Tuesday.

The exit ban was reportedly imposed on Han and Choi around the middle of this month.

The police’s special investigation unit handling the high-profile case called in Han, Choi and former Interior Minister Lee Sang-min on Monday for questioning for about 10 hours about their alleged involvement in Yoon’s martial law declaration on Dec. 3 last year. An exit ban on Lee, which was imposed in December, has also been extended.

The former ministers were reportedly grilled about whether they made false statements about the process of receiving martial law-related documents during a Cabinet meeting convened by Yoon on the night of Dec. 3, as police have completed an analysis of surveillance footage of the presidential office’s Cabinet meeting room and hallway.

During the questioning, Han reportedly reaffirmed his stance that he was unaware of the martial law plan in advance and had strongly opposed Yoon’s decision up until the moment the decree was declared.

“It is his position that he fully cooperated with the investigation and has shared everything he remembers with the police, the National Assembly and the prosecution,” an aide to Han told Yonhap News Agency.

Han previously denied the charges, stating in February that he only realized he had been carrying the martial law declaration document in the back pocket of his suit after the decree was rescinded by an Assembly vote.

Choi and Lee also gave testimonies that were largely consistent with their previous statements, according to news reports.

Choi, who is suspected of having received a memo from Yoon ordering a budget for an emergency legislative body during the Dec. 3 Cabinet meeting, has said that someone had handed him a “folded note” but he was too overwhelmed at the time to read it.

Police also questioned Lee over allegations that Yoon had ordered him to cut off the power and water supply at major local media outlets, though he testified earlier that Yoon did not give such orders.

Police have also extended exit bans this month on top Presidential Security Service (PSS) officials, including former chief Park Chong-jun and deputy head Kim Seong-hoon.

The investigation team recently detected signs of the user information of Yoon, Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, and Kim Bong-sik, former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, being remotely deleted from secure phone server records submitted by the PSS.

Police have yet to narrow down a suspect but have reportedly not ruled out Yoon or PSS deputy chief Kim as possibly being behind the records’ erasure.