Arrest sought of Moon’s ex-defense chief in North Korea’s killing of South Korea official

Seoul prosecutors on Tuesday sought an arrest warrant for former chiefs of national defense and maritime police in an investigation surrounding the killing of South Korean fisheries official Lee Dae-jun by North Korean soldiers two years ago.

The Seoul central prosecutors’ office said in a message to reporters that they were seeking an arrest warrant for Seo Wook, who served as minister of national defense in the Moon Jae-in administration, over several charges including abuse of authority, falsifying documents and destroying electronic records of a public office.

According to the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea’s Oct. 14 report, Seo ordered the deletion of some 60 military intelligence reports in the early hours of Sept. 23, 2020, immediately after learning in a 1 a.m. meeting called by Cheong Wa Dae that Lee had just been killed.

Seo had an official in charge of the military intelligence management system to come into work and delete the reports, the BAI said.

Kim Hong-hee, who as commissioner of the Coast Guard Korea oversaw the search operations and the investigations that followed, also faces charges of abuse of authority and falsifying official records.

According to the BAI, he is suspected of covering up evidence that appear to disprove the coast guard determination that Lee was defecting to North Korea.

The Coast Guard characterized Lee as a North Korea defector in its press briefings using unverified evidence and stories about his personal life such as his financial situation, over which his family sued, while withholding facts that point to the country, the BAI said in the same report.

For instance, the Coast Guard did not disclose its internal interviews which revealed that Lee’s crewmembers stated that they believed it was unlikely Lee was attempting to defect to North Korea.

Until the BAI report it also remained unknown that when North Korean soldiers found Lee, he was also wearing a foreign life jacket that wasn’t the fisheries ministry’s, suggesting that he did not leave the vessel voluntarily -- something that the Coast Guard was aware of but kept hidden.

Prosecutors have been investigating the possible mishandling by South Korean authorities in the circumstances leading to and after Lee’s death. The investigations opened in July after the maritime and military authorities announced there was no evidence to prove Lee was a North Korea defector, correcting their previous conclusion.

Prosecutors said they decided to request arrest warrants after Seo and Kim over the gravity of the criminal suspicions facing them and concerns they might tamper with evidence. Both were summoned for questioning last week.

The arrest warrant requests Tuesday may be just the beginning of the widening investigations. It was Cheong Wa Dae’s Office of National Security that orchestrated the Defense Ministry and maritime police’s public announcements that depicted Lee’s case as an attempted defection to North Korea, according to the BAI’s latest findings. The BAI said the Cheong Wa Dae office asked the two institutions to respond with “one voice.”

In a phone call with The Korea Herald, Kim Ki-yun, the lawyer representing Lee’s family, said based on what’s been revealed so far he believed it was “beyond justified” that the top authorities who were in charge would be arrested.

“I think it is absolutely outrageous that one of the first actions taken by the national defense minister just hours after a citizen was murdered by North Korean soldiers was expunging the related intelligence reports,” he said.

In related investigations, Suh Hoon and Park Jie-hoon, who were then-directors of Cheong Wa Dae’s Office of National Security and the National Intelligence Service, respectively, are among those suspected of having a key role in the alleged cover-up.

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)