Members of the Korea Federation of Trade Unions hold placards reading “Resign Yoon Suk Yeol, who led the uprising!” during a rally calling for Yoon’s ouster in front of the ruling People Power Party headquarters in Seoul, December 6.

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SEOUL – As new details emerged Friday about South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed attempt to impose martial law this week, calls for his ouster grew louder.

Parliament is expected to vote on an impeachment measure on Saturday and large street demonstrations are expected.

Among the details that emerged Friday was that Yoon’s then-defense minister ordered troops to remove lawmakers from South Korea’s parliament building and arrest them – something the military refused to do. Kim Yong-hyun, the defense minister, subsequently resigned.

“It was clearly illegal to drag out lawmakers, and of course the people who carried out this mission would later be held legally responsible,” Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-keun, commander of the South Korean army’s special warfare division, said in a meeting with lawmaker Kim Byung- joo, South Korean media reported. “I knew it would be considered disobeying orders because I was given that order, but I didn’t pass it on,” Kwak said.

“These soldiers who were sent were not conscripts. They were all professionals,” retired special forces commander Lt. Gen. Chun In-bum tells NPR. “The people who commissioned them didn’t know that they were democratically trained citizen-soldiers and not zombies.”

South Korea’s martial law law says lawmakers have immunity from arrest unless they are caught committing a crime.

Due to commanders’ refusal to follow the former defense minister’s orders, lawmakers remained in parliament and voted unanimously to ask Yoon to lift his martial law order, which he did early Wednesday, about six hours after it was issued.

However, troops were dispatched to the National Election Commission on Tuesday evening. Then-Defense Minister Kim told local media: “It was about assessing the need to investigate the alleged election fraud.”

Another detail that emerged Friday came from the deputy director of South Korea’s spy agency, who said Yoon ordered him to arrest not only lawmakers but also a popular liberal journalist and a former Supreme Court justice. Spy agency chief Cho Tae-yong later denied that Yoon had ordered the arrests of politicians.

Amid concerns that Yoon might make another attempt to declare martial law, South Korea’s acting Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho told reporters that neither the ministry nor the military would accept such orders.

University students demonstrate in front of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party headquarters in Seoul on Friday. The banner reads: “Participating in obstructing impeachment is a crime.”

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Meanwhile, Yoon’s own party leader said Friday that Yoon’s constitutional powers should be suspended, warning that the president faces a “significant risk of extreme measures such as a renewed attempt to impose martial law, which may endanger the Republic of Korea and its citizens.” could bring great danger.”

Friday’s revelations appear to increase the likelihood of Yoon’s impeachment. Saturday’s vote requires a two-thirds majority of the 300-member parliament, meaning some ruling party lawmakers will have to side with the opposition for the vote to pass. At least one has said he would support impeachment.

If Yoon is indicted, it could unseat a regional leader who has supported the Biden administration’s key policy goals in Asia.

“Yoon was in many ways the best partner the United States could have had in South Korea,” said Daniel Sneider, an expert on U.S. Asia policy at Stanford University. And he says, “The Biden administration has invested enormously in President Yoon’s administration,” particularly in persuading Seoul and Tokyo to resolve historic feuds and join trilateral military cooperation to deter North Korea.

An impeachment election, Sneider says, could result in a Liberal government much more interested in working with Russia, North Korea and China.

That’s why Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, says: “In Seoul, the risk goes beyond Korean democracy.”

Those stakes, Easley said, include whether a key middle power in Asia will continue to work with Washington to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and advocate for human rights.

NPR’s Se Eun Gong contributed to this report in Seoul.