South Korea’s former national security director was detained on Saturday on suspicion of covering up North Korea’s 2020 killing of a South Korean fisheries agency official near the two countries’ maritime border.
Suh Hoon’s arrest comes as the conservative government of the country’s President Yoon Suk Yeol investigates how his liberal predecessor handled this murder and another border incident in the same year, cases that drew much criticism.
Seoul was, at the time of these incidents, desperately trying to appease North Korea in order to improve relations.
Former President Moon Jae-in, who gambled his only term on inter-Korean rapprochement before stepping down in May, reacted angrily to the investigation into Suh’s actions. Moon issued a statement this week accusing the Yoon government of raising baseless accusations and politicizing sensitive security issues.
According to a statement from the Seoul Central District Court, Judge Kim Jeong-min approved the prosecutor’s request to detain Suh, in order to prevent the destruction of evidence.
Suh did not respond to reporters’ questions about the allegations against him when he appeared in court Friday for a review of the prosecution’s arrest warrant request.
An earlier investigation by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection concluded that Moon government officials made no meaningful attempt to rescue Lee Dae-jun after learning that the 47-year-old fisheries officer was on the drifts in waters close to the border. 2020.
After confirming that North Korean troops had shot Lee dead, authorities publicly raised the possibility that he was trying to defect to North Korea, citing his gambling debts and family problems, while concealing evidence that Lee did not intend to. to do so, according to an October report from the Board of Auditors.
Suh also served as Moon’s spy chief before being appointed director of national security two months before the assassination.
The former national security director faces suspicions that he used a cabinet meeting to order authorities to destroy records of information related to the incident while the government produced a public explanation for Lee’s death.
Suh is also suspected of ordering the Defense Ministry, the National Intelligence Service and the Coast Guard to put in their reports that Lee was trying to defect.
In June, the Ministry of Defense and the Coast Guard revoked the Moon government’s description of the incident, saying there was no evidence Lee had attempted to defect.
Moon’s Democratic Party issued a statement criticizing Suh’s detention, saying suspicions that he might destroy evidence were unreasonable as “all materials are in the hands of the Yoon Suk Yeol government.”
Moon left office with little to show for his engagement efforts with North Korea, and investigations into the two incidents further tarnished his legacy.
Moon met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 and pushed for Kim to arrange meetings with former US President Donald Trump as part of efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff and improve inter-Korean ties.
However, he never recovered from the failure of the second Kim-Trump meeting in 2019 in Vietnam. The talks broke down when the sides failed to agree on talks to end US-led sanctions against North Korea to deter the Asian country from reducing its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Source: TSF
