Presidential Office Targets Jeong Eui-yong and Democratic Party: "Cooperate with Investigation, Not Political Offensive" (Comprehensive)

Choi Young-beom Chief "Claim of No Defection Intent is Nonsense"
Senior Official "Suspicion of Ignoring SI When Civil Servant Was Killed... Doubts About Using Defector Fishermen"
Spokesperson's Office "Moon Said We Should Embrace Foreign Crew of Pesca Maro Who Killed Our Citizens as Fellow Koreans"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] On the 17th, the Presidential Office criticized the controversy surrounding the repatriation of North Korean fishermen, stating, "What the opposition party and related figures from the previous administration should do is not political attacks but sincerely cooperate with the investigation to respond to the public's demand to reveal the truth."

Choi Young-beom, the Chief Public Relations Officer, said at a briefing held at the Yongsan Presidential Office in the afternoon, "It is a serious problem to label the North Korean fishermen as grotesque murderers without a proper investigation. Naturally, our government agencies should have conducted a thorough investigation according to our legal procedures before drawing conclusions."

Choi’s briefing was a rebuttal to former National Security Office Chief Jeong Ui-yong, who served under President Moon Jae-in. Jeong had issued a statement titled "Position on the Expulsion of Heinous Criminals" through Rep. Yoon Gun-young of the Democratic Party of Korea, describing the North Korean fishermen as "grotesque murderers of the worst kind" and stating that "they had no intention of defecting to South Korea from the beginning."

Regarding this, Choi said, "The claim that they had no intention to defect is also a sophism," and questioned, "Then why was the handwritten letter of intent to defect ignored?" He added, "The essence of this issue is that the North Korean fishermen, who should have been accepted by the Republic of Korea and handled according to our laws, were sent back to the brink of death as the North demanded."

He continued, "Was the report to the National Assembly made reluctantly only after the field commander's text message was exposed to the media?" and questioned, "If this was such a proper matter, why was the normal command chain ignored, and why did the Deputy Director of the National Security Office receive a direct report via text message from a field-grade officer without the knowledge of the Minister of National Defense?"

Furthermore, he said, "If the opposition and ruling parties agree, neither a special prosecutor investigation nor a state audit can be avoided or should be avoided. However, I wonder if the opposition believes they can distort the truth because they hold the majority of seats." He emphasized, "While the eyes and ears of the public can be temporarily blinded, the truth cannot be covered up forever."

In response to a question from the press after the briefing about reports that the previous government knew about the murder of the North Korean fishermen through Special Intelligence (SI) and Signal Intelligence, a senior official from the Presidential Office said, "There are two cases where the previous government used SI. In September 2020, when a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official drifted to the North, there are suspicions that SI was known but was neglected and ignored for a long time," adding, "As a result, the Ministry official was shot by North Korean soldiers."

He added, "However, the previous government reportedly used SI in handling the 2019 North Korean fishermen case. It remains questionable why SI was applied with different standards in these two incidents."

Regarding Woo Sang-ho, the Emergency Response Committee Chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, who proposed at a press conference on the same day to conduct a special prosecutor investigation into both the repatriation of the North Korean fishermen and the 'private recruitment controversy' involving Woo Mo, the son of Kwon Seong-dong, the acting leader and floor leader of the People Power Party, who was hired by the Presidential Office, a related official said, "It is logical to handle urgent matters first. If we do everything at once, the discussion becomes complicated," drawing a clear line.

The Presidential Office spokesperson’s office also released reference materials right after the briefing, pointing out regarding the repatriation case, "(The Moon Jae-in) Blue House relied solely on SI to detect the defection in advance and decided to repatriate the fishermen by framing them as heinous criminals even before they crossed over to our side," and added, "The Moon administration’s Blue House emphasized SI security but actually used it in a way that aligned with the North Korean authorities’ position, raising suspicions."

They also emphasized, "They belittled the Central Joint Intelligence Investigation, which began with a handwritten letter of intent to defect clearly expressing the intention to defect," and "They hastily completed the verification process, which usually takes one to two months, within two to three days, prematurely ending the joint interrogation process and forcibly concluding the investigation, including returning the boat the fishermen had boarded, resulting in a sloppy investigation of the defectors."

Moreover, the spokesperson’s office criticized that the Moon Blue House ignored domestic laws that consider defectors as our citizens under the constitution and international laws such as the principle of non-refoulement under the Convention Against Torture, instead highlighting only the defectors’ criminal acts. They added, "Former President Moon Jae-in, who emphasized human rights and the rule of law, once said that foreign crew members who killed our citizens on the Pesca Ma ship should also be warmly embraced as our compatriots."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.