South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol requested his release from jail during an initial hearing for his prosecution on charges of insurgency stemming from his martial law declaration. The Seoul Central District Court heard the first pre-trial hearing in the president’s criminal case on Thursday, over a month after he was charged with the unsuccessful attempt to declare martial law in South Korea in December.

Yoon, dressed in a navy suit and a crimson tie, sat next to his lawyers, facing a team of prosecutors on the other side of the room who had prepared 70,000 pages of evidence to present their case. Yoon stayed mute throughout the hour-long session. He subsequently went to the Constitutional Court for another hearing in a different impeachment case. Yoon’s political gamble has created a political vacuum in South Korea, leaving the country with no clear policy direction as market anxieties over Trump’s tariffs grow. In February, pessimists outweighed optimists for the third month in a row, according to a consumer confidence index

The impeached president’s next court appearance is just another milestone in a remarkable turn of events. Yoon was previously a prominent prosecutor who established his name by investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye. Park was ultimately impeached and imprisoned. Yoon startled the country and the globe when he briefly declared martial law in early December, plunging South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades. The Constitutional Court is considering whether to remove him from office after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on December 14.

The president is accused of attempting to lock down the National Assembly to prevent MPs from repealing martial law and arresting key politicians. Yoon has refuted all of these claims during the impeachment hearings. With the two charges against Yoon still pending, the public is deeply split on the country’s future direction. A weekly Gallup opinion poll released on Friday found that 57% of respondents supported Yoon’s impeachment and 38% opposed it. However, Yoon’s People Power Party now has a higher support rate than the main opposition Democratic Party

Hours before the trial began, the court was encircled by police buses and workers amid heightened security. In January, several of his followers became aggressive and assaulted the separate court that issued the arrest warrant for Yoon. The next hearing in Yoon’s criminal case is scheduled for March 24.