South Korean prosecutors clear former President Moon
· UPIJuly 25 (Asia Today) -- South Korean prosecutors have declined to indict former President Moon Jae-in over allegations that he approved efforts to conceal or minimize North Korea's 2020 killing of a South Korean fisheries official.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office closed the case Tuesday, citing insufficient evidence to support allegations of abuse of authority, falsification of official documents and use of falsified documents.
The decision came about three years and seven months after a conservative civic group filed a complaint against Moon in December 2022.
The group, the National Defense Corps of Korea, alleged that Moon received reports from the Defense Ministry, the Korea Coast Guard and the National Intelligence Service and ultimately approved the alleged cover-up.
The case centers on the death of Lee Dae-jun, an official with South Korea's Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.
Lee disappeared from a government fisheries patrol vessel near Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea in September 2020. North Korean troops later found and fatally shot him in waters controlled by the North.
The Korea Coast Guard under the Moon administration announced that investigators believed Lee had intentionally attempted to defect to North Korea.
After a change of government in 2022, South Korean authorities reversed that conclusion, saying there was insufficient evidence to determine that Lee had voluntarily tried to cross into North Korea.
The Board of Audit and Inspection launched an investigation and prosecutors accused senior national security officials from the Moon administration of deleting or distorting intelligence to support the claim that Lee had attempted to defect.
Prosecutors subsequently indicted former national security adviser Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won, former Defense Minister Suh Wook, former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee and other officials.
A district court acquitted all of the defendants in December.
Prosecutors did not appeal the acquittals of Park, Suh Wook and former intelligence official Noh Eun-chae, making those verdicts final.
Prosecutors appealed portions of the verdicts involving Suh Hoon and Kim, but the Seoul High Court upheld their acquittals in June.
The appeals court said the Coast Guard's statements about the possibility that Lee intended to defect could be viewed as conclusions or assessments based on the investigation at the time.
The court said some of the statements might have been premature or overly definitive but could not be considered false official information beyond a reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors also declined to indict Moon in September 2025 after Lee's family accused the former president of dereliction of duty and defamation in a separate complaint.
-- Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260725010009138