hankyoreh

Park Sang-chun (left), head of the Incheon Coast Guard, and Yun Hyeong-jin, head of the policy planning division of the Ministry of National Defense, bow to reporters after a briefing on June 16 related to the findings of an investigation into the death of a South Korean government official. (Yonhap News)

The Incheon Coast Guard released the results of its investigation concerning the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries civil servant who went missing in the waters off Soyeonpyeong Island on Sept. 21, 2020, and was subsequently shot and killed by North Korea. The Coast Guard concluded that the case could not be presumed to be a voluntary defection.

The Ministry of National Defense apologized for having previously stated it assumed that the 47-year-old civil servant surnamed Lee had voluntarily defected.

Park Sang-chun, chief of the Incheon Coast Guard, held a briefing regarding the incident on Thursday.

“Based on the Defense Ministry’s announcement and others, we conducted a comprehensive investigation by investigating the scene [of the incident] and via international judicial mutual assistance while leaving the door open for many possibilities, including that of defection by the civil servant who was shot, but we did not find evidence to demonstrate a motivation for defection,” Park said at the briefing.

Yoon Hyeong-jin, head of the Defense Ministry’s policy planning division, also stated, “We caused confusion among the public. We also regret that we were not able to disclose more information [about the case] due to the fact that we cannot reveal all details for security reasons.”

Previously, the Coast Guard had announced on Sept. 29, 2020, during its interim briefing on its investigation, that they judged Lee to have voluntarily defected. The Coast Guard stated at the time: “We confirmed that the missing person was dehydrated and clinging to flotsam while wearing a life vest when he was found in the waters of North Korea, that North Korea had at its disposal the missing person’s personal information such as name, age, hometown, height, and others that only he would know, and circumstances that point to the missing person having expressed his intent to defect.”

They added, “Considering that the missing person was wearing a life vest, the investigation team believes it’s extremely unlikely that he simply fell off his boat or attempted suicide.”

Authorities said they did not reverse their judgment on the case because they found new evidence. Kim Dae-han, investigation chief at the Incheon Coast Guard, said, “Although we conducted our investigation so that no question would be left unanswered, we ultimately did not find evidence that would prove [Lee] went into North Korean waters voluntarily.”

In other words, investigators ended up coming up with a different conclusion because they couldn’t find evidence pointing to defection beyond that which was circumstantial and conjecture.

Subsequently, the government dropped its appeal of the first trial concerning the lawsuit Lee’s bereaved family had filed and won against the Blue House (currently the presidential office) and the Coast Guard to cancel their deposition refusing the disclosure of information regarding the case.

The Office of National Security within the presidential office sent out a press release Thursday in which it stated that “the verdict of the first trial will be confirmed following the withdrawal of the appeal.”

“We hope that this decision rectifies the unjust measures of the past that led to the insufficient disclosure of the circumstances [of Lee’s] death to the bereaved family and limited information despite the fact that a citizen of ours was killed by the North Korean military as well as contributing, if only to slightly, the satisfaction of the people’s right to know,” the office added.

Still, because materials related to the presidential office have already been transferred to the designated presidential archives, where they will be sealed for the next few decades, Lee’s bereaved family will not be able to access them even if the government’s appeal is withdrawn.

Earlier, President Yoon Suk-yeol had promised during his presidential campaign in December that “if [he came] to power, [he would] make public materials concerning the civil servant killed in the Yellow Sea.”

On Thursday, the presidential office also revealed that Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office, spoke with the deceased’s older brother Lee Rae-jin on the phone in Yoon’s stead.

Lee’s bereaved family will hold a press conference at the Seoul Bar Association building on Friday to express their position on the government’s announcement.

During a phone call with the Hankyoreh, Lee Rae-jin said, “The recent measure is completely different from that of the previous administration. I conveyed my thanks to President [Yoon].”

He added, “We plan to file a civil suit and bring criminal charges [against Coast Guard officials of the past who made the judgment that Lee defected].”

By Lee Seung-wook, staff reporter; Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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