The state auditor on Thursday requested the prosecution investigate 20 people, including top security officials of the previous Moon Jae-in government, on charges of covering up and distorting facts in the 2020 death of a South Korean fisheries official at the hands of North Korea.
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) announced the result of its two-month inspection into the liberal Moon government’s handling of the death of the 47-year-old official near the western Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas, which has resurfaced as a politically sensitive issue under the conservative government of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
The BAI requested the prosecution investigate 20 people from five government agencies involved in the case, on charges including dereliction of duty, abuse of power and creating false official documents.
Among them are former National Security Adviser Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Park Jie-won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook, sources said.
The former defense minister was questioned by the prosecution over the case earlier in the day.
At that time, the Coast Guard and the military had concluded the official, Lee Dae-jun, was killed by the North’s coast guard while attempting to defect to the North. In June, they reversed the conclusion and said there was no evidence to suggest the defection attempt.
The BAI accused the authorities of deliberately excluding facts suggesting Lee did not intend to defect.
The Coast Guard failed to take necessary steps in the early hours of the incident in accordance with the crisis management manual, the BAI said
The BAI found the presidential National Security Office (NSO) ordered the government agencies, including the defense ministry, to highlight his attempt to defect despite insufficient evidence.
The NSO became aware of the incident on the night of the killing on Sept. 22, but the office chose not to make a report to the president until the next morning, according to the BAI finding.
Suh Wook allegedly told an official to erase some 60 military intelligence reports related to the incident. The NIS also deleted 46 related intel documents without authorization.
The NSO instructed the defense ministry to write up a comprehensive report on the case concluding that it was voluntary defection.
The BAI also questioned the defense ministry’s change of its position on whether Lee’s body, which was burned, was actually incinerated by the North’s military.
The BAI claimed the ministry changed its stance after the North said in a written notice to the South that it set on fire “floating objects,” not a dead body.
The former Moon administration officials and the main opposition Democratic Party called the probe a political reprisal and accused the Yoon government of pressing the BAI to launch the probe for political reasons.
Source: Yonhap News Agency