hankyoreh

Noh Young-min, former President Moon Jae-in’s chief of staff, speaks to the Hankyoreh on March 22, 2021. (Baek So-ah/The Hankyoreh)

Prosecutors summoned former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min on Wednesday for questioning in their investigation of the 2019 repatriation of two North Korean fishers.

Coming on the heels of their arrest warrant requests the day before for former Minister of National Defense Suh Wook and others in connection with the government’s response to the 2020 shooting death of a South Korean government employee by North Korean soldiers in the West Sea, the move signals that prosecutors are ratcheting up their investigation of Blue House officials from the preceding Moon Jae-in administration.

On Wednesday morning, the third public investigation division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, headed by chief prosecutor Lee Jun-beom, summoned Noh for questioning as an accused party.

In November 2019, two North Korean fishers who fled after killing 16 of their fellow fishing boat crew members were sent back to the North after being caught by the South Korean Navy. Prosecutors believe that Noh, who presided over a Blue House meeting on countermeasures at the time, was involved in the repatriation decision.

The People Power Party (PPP) previously filed a complaint with prosecutors in August accusing Noh and others of dereliction of duty and the abuse of power to obstruct the exercise of rights. The prosecutors also summoned former Minister of Unification Kim Yeon-chul for questioning on Sept. 20.

The prosecutors believe that in making the decision to send the North Korean fishers back, it disregarded their repeated indications to members of the South Korean government’s joint investigation team that they wished to defect.

The Democratic Party has stated multiple reasons for not recognizing the genuineness of the fishers’ statement of intent to defect. These included their comments about wanting to “die in our homeland [North Korea] if we’re going to die”; the fact that at the time of their capture, they had been moving in and out of the Northern Limit Line for three days without complying with the South Korean Navy’s directives; and the terms of the North Korean Refugees Protection and Settlement Support Act, which stipulates that South Korea may decide not to offer protection to those guilty of severe non-political crimes such as homicide.

Indeed, a PPP member of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee supported the repatriation decision at the time, saying they thought it would “dangerous to have people like that walking around among our public.”

By Jeon Gwang-joon, staff reporter

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