THE top aide of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol pleaded with law enforcement officials today to abandon their efforts to detain him over last month’s martial law imposition, as authorities prepared a second attempt to take him into custody.

In his statement, presidential chief of staff Chung Jin Suk said that President Yoon could instead be questioned at a “third site” or at his residence and claimed that 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 Mr Chung had issued the message without consulting them and that the legal team has no immediate plans to make the president available for questioning by investigators.