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Prosecutors have requested a preliminary arrest warrant for former Defense Minister Seo Wook of the Moon Jae-in administration and former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee.
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He has been accused of suppressing information or creating and distributing false press statements to make it appear as if a public official who was attacked in the West Sea had voluntarily fled North Korea.
Correspondent Kim Ji-in.
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On September 23, 2020, the day after Lee Dae-jun, an official of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, was shot dead by North Korean soldiers.
According to the Audit and Inspection Board, the person in charge of the Ministry of National Defence’s ‘Mims’ military intelligence system was subpoenaed and 60 spy documents deleted.
After an early morning meeting at the Blue House, the prosecution requested an arrest warrant for the former minister after reports that then Defense Minister Seo Wook had ordered his removal.
Former Minister Seo has also been accused of instructing him to prepare false reports, including information about the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as if Lee Dae-jun was going to North Korea voluntarily.
This is the first arrest warrant application after three months of investigation, and although it is a period of examination by the government where political battles are inevitable, they have started to secure new recruits for key figures.
Prosecutors also sought an arrest warrant for Kim Hong-hee, who was in charge of the investigation at the time, and a former Commissioner of the Korean Coast Guard.
The Coastguard distributed the press release three times as a result of the interim investigation at the time, and the prosecution applied the charge of ‘writing false public documents’.
The announcement itself at the time ‘that it appears to be a voluntary defect’ was deemed to be ‘false’.
Earlier, the Audit and Inspection Board said, “Former Chief Executive Kim ignored the report that ‘Lee Dae-jun was wearing a life jacket with Chinese characters on it’, saying, ‘I will assume that I have not seen it ‘.’ he said,” he announced.
Former Minister Seo Wook had previously argued that “the scope of reading was limited so that no one could see sensitive data, and the data was never deleted.”
The court’s substantive examination of the arrest warrant for both will take place on Friday, the 21st.
According to the court’s first ruling, the investigation into the ‘top line’, including former National Intelligence Service Director Park Ji-won and former National Security Bureau Director Seo Hoon, was also at a crossroads.
This is Kim Ji-in from MBC News.
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