Anchor: As President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment trial draws to an end, the Constitutional Court will soon deliberate on the evidence and decide whether to uphold or reject the parliamentary impeachment motion. Three key issues regarding the night of December 3 are expected to determine the court’s ruling.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: Three key issues are the focal point in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment trial as the eight-member bench at the Constitutional Court prepares to wrap up the proceedings and announce when it will hand down a ruling.

Teams representing the president and the National Assembly were deeply divided on whether Yoon ordered military intervention in an attempt to block lawmakers from passing their motion to revoke his December 3 martial law decree.

Former Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-geun, who testified February 6, said that when he received two phone calls from Yoon, he understood the president to have ordered the lawmakers’ immediate removal from the parliament building.

Yoon, in response, claimed he had called to verify the situation and safety at the Assembly, while Kim Hyun-tae, head of the 707th Special Mission Group, said Kwak had not issued an order to remove the lawmakers.

Another issue is the alleged existence of a list of people, including key political figures, to be arrested and detained under martial law.

Hong Jang-won, former deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, testified twice and strongly insisted on the authenticity of the list he said he wrote down while on the phone with former Defense Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyung.

NIS Director Cho Tae-yong, however, questioned the credibility of Hong’s memo, which Hong said his aide had transcribed more legibly from the original.

Another bone of contention concerns whether the Cabinet followed the necessary procedures to review the decree prior to its issuance, with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo testifying on Thursday that the meeting seemed not to adhere to the usual protocol.

Han’s testimony contradicts that of former interior minister Lee Sang-min, who told the court on February 11 that if the meeting had not followed formal procedures, the president would not have waited nearly half an hour for eleven Cabinet members to attend to meet the quorum.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.