Ex-president sued over official’s death
The family of a slain South Korean government official has claimed that the country’s former president failed to protect his life and wrongly portrayed him as a defector to North Korea. Moon Jae-in served as president from 2017 to May 2022.
In September 2020, North Korean soldiers shot Lee Dae-jun, an official at South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, near the maritime border in the Yellow Sea. Lee went missing the previous day while on duty aboard a fishery inspection boat.
South Korean officials said at the time that Lee was killed while attempting to defect to North Korea. However, South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) concluded in October that the Moon administration falsified evidence and covered up the details of the case in order to portray the victim as a defector.
“The former president didn’t immediately get to work to rescue my brother even after learning that he was in North Korea’s territory,” Lee Rae-jin, the deceased official’s older brother, told reporters on Wednesday. “The result of that neglect was the brutal murder of a South Korean citizen, who was also an employee of our government.”
According to Lee, the Moon administration failed to properly communicate with Pyongyang while his brother was still alive, and publicized “damning claims” about him.
Suh Hoon, Moon’s former chief national security official, was arrested this month over the allegations of mishandling the case. He denied receiving orders from Moon to destroy evidence regarding Lee’s disappearance and death.
