President Yoon Suk Yeol’s defense team is calling for his immediate release, arguing that the prosecution kept him behind bars unlawfully after failing to properly calculate when his pretrial detention warrant expired.  

The Seoul Central District Court heard arguments on Thursday for and against Yoon’s request to rescind his detention, after the first pretrial conference in his insurrection trial. 

Yoon’s defense team argued that he is being detained illegally because he was not indicted until 6:52 p.m. January 26, the day after his pretrial detention warrant expired. 

The defense team said the prosecution made a mistake in calculating the time it took the court to review the legality of the warrant used to arrest Yoon and the prosecution’s request to hold him in pretrial detention.

The prosecution countered that both the Criminal Procedure Act and precedents dictate that that time, some 33 hours, be counted as two days, and said Yoon’s release could result in the destruction of evidence.

Under the nation’s Criminal Procedure Act, time spent on warrant hearings for a suspect in custody does not count as part of the detention period because the prosecution has to pause its investigation.

The court is expected to announce its decision on Yoon's request for release in early March.