Top aide of impeached South Korean president pleads for investigators to halt detention efforts

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The top aide of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pleaded with law enforcement agencies on Tuesday to abandon their efforts to detain him over his imposition of martial law last month, as authorities prepared a second attempt to take him into custody.

Presidential Chief of Staff Chung Jin-suk said Yoon could instead be questioned at a “third site” or at his residence and said the anti-corruption agency and police were trying to drag him out like he was a member of a “South American drug cartel.”

However, Yoon Kab-keun, one of the president’s lawyers, said Chung issued the message without consulting them and that the legal team has no immediate plan to make the president available for questioning by investigators.

Yoon Suk Yeol has not left his official residence in Seoul for weeks, and the presidential security service prevented dozens of investigators from detaining him after a nearly six-hour standoff on Jan. 3.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials and police pledged more forceful measures to detain Yoon while they jointly investigate whether his brief martial law declaration on Dec. 3 amounted to an attempted rebellion.

The National Police Agency has convened multiple meetings of field commanders in Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province in recent days to plan their detainment efforts, and the size of those forces fueled speculation that more than a thousand officers could be deployed in a possible multiday operation. The agency and police have openly warned that presidential bodyguards obstructing the execution of the warrant could be arrested.

The anti-corruption agency and police haven’t confirmed when they might return to the presidential residence, which has been fortified with barbed wire and rows of vehicles blocking entry paths. But Chung said he understood “D-day” to be Wednesday, without specifying the information he had.

Anti-corruption agency and police officials met with representatives of the presidential security service on Tuesday morning for unspecified discussions regarding efforts to execute the detention warrant for Yoon, the agency said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether any kind of compromise was reached.

Yoon declared martial law and deployed troops around the National Assembly on Dec. 3. It lasted only hours before lawmakers managed to get through the blockade and voted to lift the measure.

His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14, accusing him of rebellion. His fate now rests with the Constitutional Court, which has begun deliberating on whether to formally remove Yoon from office or reject the charges and reinstate him.

The Constitutional Court held its first formal hearing in the case on Tuesday. The session lasted less than five minutes because Yoon refused to attend, choosing to remain at his official residence while the detention warrant for him is active. The next hearing is set for Thursday, and the court will then proceed with the trial whether or not Yoon attends.

The country’s acting leader, Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, raised concerns on Monday about potential clashes between authorities and the presidential security service, which, despite a court warrant for Yoon’s detention, has insisted it’s obligated to protect the impeached president.

The anti-corruption agency and police have “completed preparations for a siege,” Chung said.

“They are ready to tear down the walls at any moment and handcuff President Yoon Suk Yeol, who remains isolated in his residence in Hannam-dong, and forcibly remove him,” he added, accusing investigators of trying to humiliate the president.

“Thousands of citizens are staying up through the night in front of the presidential residence, vowing to protect the president. If a conflict were to break out between the police and citizens, an unimaginable tragedy could occur.”

Over the past two weeks, thousands of anti-Yoon and pro-Yoon protesters have gathered daily in competing rallies near Yoon’s office in Seoul, anticipating another detention attempt. Yoon’s lawyers have claimed that images of him being dragged out in handcuffs could trigger a huge backlash from his supporters and spark a “civil war” in a country deeply divided over ideological and generational lines.

In preventing Yoon’s detention on Jan, 3, presidential bodyguards were assisted by troops assigned to guard the presidential residence under the command of the presidential security service. However, Defense Ministry spokesperson Lee Kyung-ho stated on Tuesday that the troops will no longer participate in efforts to block the execution of Yoon’s detention warrant and will focus solely on guarding the compound’s perimeter.

South Korea's Constitutional Court's judges, from left, Chung Kye-sun, Kim Bok-hyeong, Jung Jung-mi, Lee Mi-son, acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae, Kim Hyung-du, Cheong Hyung-sik and Cho Han-chang sit for the first formal hearing of a trial on the validity of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment by the National Assembly at the constitutional court of Korea in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (Kim Min-Hee/Pool Photo via AP)

South Korea's Constitutional Court's judges, from left, Jung Jung-mi, Lee Mi-son, acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae, Kim Hyung-du and Cheong Hyung-sik sit for the first formal hearing of a trial on the validity of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment by the National Assembly at the constitutional court of Korea in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (Kim Min-Hee/Pool Photo via AP)

Judge Moon Hyung-bae, acting chief justice of South Korea's Constitutional Court, sits for the first formal hearing of a trial on the validity of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment by the National Assembly at the constitutional court of Korea in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (Kim Min-Hee/Pool Photo via AP)

A pedestrian passes by the wreaths sent by supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol outside of the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

South Korean police officers stand in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs during a rally to oppose his impeachment outside the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shout slogans during a rally to oppose his impeachment near the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A supporter of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a rally to oppose his impeachment near the presidential residence in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shout slogans during a rally to oppose his impeachment near the presidential residence in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Protesters stage a rally demanding the arrest of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol near the presidential residence in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. The letters read "Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol shout slogans during a rally to oppose his impeachment near the presidential residence in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attend a rally to oppose his impeachment near the presidential residence in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A system that thousands of schools and universities use to support instruction was back online Friday after it went down during a cyberattack that created chaos as students tried to study for final exams.

The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users.

Canvas is used to manage grades, course notes, assignments, lecture videos and more. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

Screen shots Connolly provided showed that the group began threatening Sunday to leak the trove of data. By Friday, Instructure and Canvas had been removed from a dedicated leak site created by the ransomware group on the dark web to publish stolen data.

Canvas went down Thursday at the worst possible time. Students quickly took to social media, with many panicking that they could no longer view course materials housed within the platform to study for their final exams.

Teachers said they were having to find workarounds to help students study for exams and submit final assignments. And some schools, such as the University of Texas at San Antonio, announced they were pushing back finals scheduled for Friday in response to the outage.

Schools like Princeton University turned to X late Thursday to announce “Canvas appears to be available again” and that information technology staff was monitoring the situation.

Rich in digitized data, the nation’s schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files that not long ago were committed to paper in locked cabinets. Past attacks have hit Minneapolis Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Instructure has not posted about the attack on its social media. The company didn’t immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press asking whether it paid a ransom and inquiring about what happened with the compromised data.

Connolly said the Canvas attack is strikingly similar to a breach at PowerSchool, which also offers learning management tools. In that case a Massachusetts college student was charged.

Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to other attacks, including one aimed at Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary.

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FILE - People take photos near a John Harvard statue, left, on the Harvard University campus, Jan. 2, 2024, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)