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Chung Eui-yong, the former director of the Blue House National Security Office appears in this undated file photo. (pool photo)

Prosecutors investigating the repatriation of two North Korean fishers during the Moon Jae-in administration have sent four key former senior officials to trial.

The four Moon-era figures indicted over the incident are Chung Eui-yong, former director of the Blue House National Security Office (NSO); Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service director; Noh Young-min, former presidential chief of staff; and Kim Yeon-chul, former minister of unification.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office indicted these four on Monday on charges of abuse of office under the National Intelligence Service Act. Prosecutors filed additional charges against Suh for alleged creation of false official documents and exercise of a false official document.

Prosecutors suspect that illegal instructions factored into the process of the Moon administration’s forcible return of two North Korean fishers who, in November 2019, killed 16 of their colleagues and expressed their intention to stay in South Korea.

Prosecutors believe that during the repatriation process, the four figures indicted conspired to force officials to perform unnecessary tasks and violated the North Korean sailors' right to be tried in South Korea under South Korean law and due process.

Suh is also accused of removing the North Korean sailors’ request for return from the centralized joint intelligence investigation team’s findings report, fabricating a false report stating that the investigation had ended when it was still ongoing, and distributing it to the Ministry of Unification. Chung and Suh are also accused of interfering with the exercise of their investigative powers by suspending and prematurely terminating the central joint intelligence investigation in accordance with the Moon Jae-in administration’s North Korea policy.

“If the prosecution’s logic that it is illegal to send a South Korean citizen to North Korea without a legal basis is technically applied to the acquisition of special intelligence, all of the following is illegal: the seizure of a North Korean fishing boat, and the conduct of joint intelligence investigations through detention,” Chung said, adding, “This indictment based on inconsistent standards proves that the investigation itself is a political investigation.”

By Son Hyun-soo, staff reporter

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