A security chief from the former Park Geun-hye government suspected of ordering a plan for martial law to be drafted returned to South Korea on Wednesday after fleeing overseas more than five years ago.

Cho Hyun-chun, former chief of the Defense Security Command(DSC), arrived at Incheon International Airport at around 6:30 a.m. from the U.S., where he had been staying.

Cho is suspected of ordering a DSC taskforce to draw up a contingency plan to declare martial law and reported it to then-defense minister Han Min-koo in February 2017 ahead of the Constitutional Court's ruling on Park's impeachment.

The commander retired in September 2017 and left for the U.S. in December that same year, remaining beyond the reach of a joint military-civilian investigation team that had secured an arrest warrant for him in September 2018.

The probe team suspended Cho’s indictment two months later as his whereabouts were unknown to the team after he left for the U.S. The ex-security chief then said in September of last year that he would return home voluntarily and actively cooperate with the investigation.