President Yoon Suk Yeol denied allegations that he had ordered the removal of lawmakers from the National Assembly during the December 3 martial law to block a motion to revoke the decree.

At the fifth hearing of his impeachment trial on Tuesday, Yoon claimed that nothing had actually happened during the short-lived martial law and said that hearing allegations about him issuing such an order feels like "chasing the moon's shadow over the surface of a lake."

The indictment of former Capital Defense Commander Lee Jin-woo is known to state that the president had ordered each group of four soldiers to remove one lawmaker from parliament.

Yoon, for his part, doubted the possibility of executing such order when thousands of people were known to be on the premises at the time.

Lee, who testified at Tuesday's hearing, refused to answer when asked if he had received the order from the president to remove the lawmakers.