South Korea’s Martial-Law Chaos Deepens, With a Suicide Attempt and Raids

South Korea’s martial-law crisis widened as the imprisoned former defense minister attempted suicide, investigators said they would seek to arrest leader Yoon Suk Yeol and police attempted to raid the presidential office.

North Korea also broke its silence on the matter, calling it a “shocking incident of the puppet Yoon Suk Yeol regime” where “guns and knives of its fascist dictatorship wrought havoc across South Korea,” according to a Wednesday state media report.

At 11:52 p.m. Tuesday, Kim Yong-hyun, the country’s recently resigned defense minister, attempted to hang himself at the detention facility where he is being held on insurrection and other charges tied to the martial-law order, according to South Korea’s justice ministry. Seoul’s military has said Kim proposed to Yoon the idea of instituting emergency powers, which sought to curtail political activity, the media and health services.