SEOUL: South Korea’s ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing his final impeachment hearing on Tuesday before judges decide whether to formally remove him from office over his disastrous martial law declaration.
Yoon’s short-lived suspension of civilian rule plunged democratic South Korea into political turmoil, and he was removed from office by parliament in December.
After weeks of fraught impeachment hearings at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, Tuesday’s proceedings began at 2:00 p.m. (0500 GMT) but Yoon was not present, an AFP journalist in the courtroom said.
In opening remarks, Yoon’s defense team cited a 2024 US Supreme Court ruling, Donald Trump v. the United States, arguing that the ousted president cannot be punished for “exercising his core constitutional powers.”
That ruling “should be considered in the context of impeachment proceedings,” Yoon’s lawyer Lee Dong-chan said.
In response, prosecutor Lee Gum-gyu spoke emotively about his son, an active duty soldier he said would have been forced to participate in Yoon’s martial law.
“As a citizen and a father, I feel a sense of rage and betrayal toward Yoon, who tried to turn my son into a martial law soldier,” he told the court.
Thursday’s session is Yoon’s last before the eight judges go behind closed doors to decide his fate.
A number of lawmakers from his ruling People Power Party were in attendance.
Yoon is expected to deliver a closing argument in his defense, with representatives of parliament given time to present the case for his removal.
Outside the court, pro-Yoon protesters chanted “Drop impeachment!”
Some held signs denouncing the Chinese Communist Party and North Korea – which some of Yoon’s supporters have accused, without evidence, of interfering in recent South Korean elections to the benefit of the opposition.
Others held signs saying “Stop the Steal,” echoing US President Trump’s false claims of voter fraud when he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
A verdict is widely expected in mid-March.
Previously impeached presidents Park Geun-hye and Roh Moo-hyun had to wait 11 and 14 days, respectively, to learn their fates.
If Yoon is removed from office, the country must hold a fresh presidential election within 60 days.
The 64-year-old has also been behind bars since he was arrested last month on charges of insurrection, for which he could be sentenced to life in prison or even face the death penalty. His trial began last week.
Much of the impeachment trial has centered on whether Yoon violated the constitution by declaring martial law, which is reserved for national emergencies or times of war.
The opposition has accused the suspended president of taking the extraordinary measure without proper justification.
Yoon’s lawyer Kim Hong-il insisted last week that “the declaration of martial law was not intended to paralyze the state.”
Instead, he said, it was meant to “alert the public to the national crisis caused by the legislative dictatorship of the dominant opposition party.”
Yoon’s lawyers have also argued that his martial law declaration was necessary to investigate unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud in last year’s parliamentary poll.
A survey by polling company Realmeter released on Monday said 52 percent of respondents support Yoon’s formal removal from office.
But a Gallup poll, released last week, showed 60 percent in favor and 34 percent against his impeachment.
South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol faces last impeachment hearing over martial law
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South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol faces last impeachment hearing over martial law
- Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived suspension of civilian rule plunged democratic South Korea into political turmoil
- Thursday’s session is Yoon’s last before the eight judges go behind closed doors to decide his fate
Australian political leaders launch election campaigns focused on first-time homeowners
MELBOURNE: Australia’s rival political leaders offered Sunday competing policies to help Australians buy a home ahead of the nation’s first federal election in which younger voters will outnumber the long-dominant baby boomer generation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton officially launched their parties’ campaigns ahead of the May 3 elections.
Helping aspiring homeowners buy into a national real estate market in which prices are high and supply is constrained due to inflation, builders going broke, shortages of materials and a growing population was central to both campaigns.
“Buying a first home has never been easy, but for this generation, it’s never felt further out of reach,” Albanese told his supporters in the west coast city of Perth.
“In Australia, home ownership should not be a privilege you inherit if you’re lucky. It should be an aspiration that Australians everywhere can achieve,” he added.
The governing center-left Labor Party promised Sunday 10 billion Australian dollars ($6.3 billion) in grants and loans to build 100,000 new homes over eight years exclusively for first-homebuyers, who would only have to pay a 5 percent deposit instead of the current minimum 20 percent, with the government paying the remainder.
Opposition promises to reduce housing demand
Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party promised to ease demand for housing by banning foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes for two years while reducing immigration and foreign student numbers.
Spain busts ring bringing Moroccans in via Romania
MADRID: Spanish police said on Sunday they had broken a ring that had brought in up to 2,500 Moroccan irregular immigrants via Romania, arresting four suspects.
The four were detained in the southeastern Murcia province on charges of belonging to a criminal organization and facilitating irregular migration, the Guardia Civil said in a statement.
The Moroccans entered Europe by plane to Romania, from where they were transported to Spain, with each one charged 3,000 euros ($3,400) for the voyage, it said. The suspects were alleged to be the ringleaders of the organization. Their nationalities were not specified.
Spanish authorities believe the ring organized 50 such trips over the past two years, each one composed of between 20 and 50 Moroccans, making for a total of between 1,000 and 2,500 irregular immigrants.
The outfit was alleged to have a “logistics center” in Romania where it hid the migrants while they awaited their transport to Spain.
The Guardia Civil said the operation to bust the ring was conducted with the help of Europol and the European Union’s border patrol agency Frontex.
Dozens reported killed in east Congo as government, rebels trade blame
- Renewed fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises
GOMA: At least 50 people were killed in weekend attacks in Congo’s conflict-battered east, authorities said Saturday. The government traded blame with Rwanda-backed rebels over who was responsible for the violence that quickly escalated the conflict in the region.
The renewed violence that residents reported in and around the region’s largest city of Goma — which the M23 rebels control — was the biggest threat yet to ongoing peace efforts by both the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and African nations in the conflict that has raised fears of regional warfare.
Goma resident Amboma Safari recounted how his family of four spent the night under their bed as they heard gunfire and bomb blasts through Friday night. “We saw corpses of soldiers, but we don’t know which group they are from,” Safari said.
The decades-long conflict between Congo and the M23 rebels escalated in January, when the rebels made an unprecedented advance and seized the strategic eastern Congolese city of Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu in February.
The latest fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced.
At least 52 people were killed between Friday and Saturday, including a person shot dead at Goma’s Kyeshero Hospital, Congo’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that blamed the attack on M23.
M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka issued a statement blaming Congolese forces and their allies for the attacks. Kanyuka said Congo’s joint operations with local militias and southern African troops “directly threaten the stability and security of civilians” in the region.
The group said it has been compelled to “reconsider its position to prioritize the security” of the people in the area, suggesting the crisis could worsen. Christian Kalamo, a civil society leader in the North Kivu province that includes Goma, said at least one body was seen on the streets on Saturday.
“It is difficult to know if it is the Wazalendo, the FARDC (Congolese forces) or the M23” that carried out the attacks, Kalamo said. “Now, we don’t know what will happen, and we live with fear in our stomachs, thinking that the war will resume.”
Tanzania opposition party barred from upcoming elections
DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania’s main opposition party has been disqualified from upcoming general elections, the country’s election chief said, after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct.
The east African nation has increasingly cracked down on its opposition ahead of a general election due in October.
The opposition Chadema party has accused President Samia Suluhu Hassan of returning to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
Chadema leader Tundu Lissu, who was arrested and charged with treason earlier in the week, previously said that his party would not participate in the polls without electoral reform.
On Saturday, Chadema said the party’s secretary-general John Mnyika would not attend an Independent National Elections Commission meeting to sign the government’s electoral code of conduct.
The decision was “informed by the lack of a written response” to the party’s “proposal and demands for essential electoral reforms,” it said in a statement.
INEC Director of Elections Ramadhani Kailima said following the meeting that “any party that hasn’t signed today will not be allowed to take part in the general election or any other elections for the next five years.” “There will be no second chance,” he told reporters.
He did not mention Chadema by name, and the party has not commented on the INEC’s decision.
Tanzania is scheduled to hold presidential and national assembly elections in October.
President Hassan’s party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi swept to victory in local elections last year.
Chadema said those elections had been manipulated, and that it would petition the high court to demand reforms ahead of the upcoming polls.
Lissu last year warned that Chadema would “block the elections through confrontation” unless the electoral system was reformed.
The opposition’s demands have been long ignored by the ruling party.
Hassan was initially feted for easing restrictions imposed by Magufuli on the opposition and the media in the country of 67 million people.
But rights groups and Western governments have criticized what they see as renewed repression, with the arrests of Chadema politicians as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures.
Bangladesh reintroduces ‘except Israel’ phrase on passports
- Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it
- In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports
DHAKA: Bangladesh has restored an “except Israel” inscription on passports, local media reported Sunday, effectively barring its citizens from traveling to that country.
Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it.
The phrase “valid for all countries except Israel,” which was printed on Bangladeshi passports for decades, was removed during the later years of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
Nilima Afroze, a deputy secretary at the home ministry, told Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency on Sunday that authorities had “issued a directive last week” to restore the inscription.
“The director general of the department of immigration and passport was asked to take necessary measures to implement this change,” local newspaper The Daily Star quoted Afroze as saying Sunday.
In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports, although the then government under Hasina clarified that the country’s stance on Israel had not changed.
The country’s support for an independent Palestinian state was visible on Saturday when around 100,000 people gathered in Dhaka in solidarity with Gaza.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
A fragile ceasefire between the warring parties fell apart last month and Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since then, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.
