Prosecutors Dismiss Charges Against Lee In-gyu, Saying "NIS Behind 'Nondureong Watch' Report" Comments

Lee In-gyu, former head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Criminal Investigation Department.

It was recently confirmed that former Deputy Chief of the Central Investigation Department at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, Lee In-gyu, who was sued for defamation after accusing the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of being behind the so-called 'Nondureong Watch' report related to the late former President Roh Moo-hyun and his wife, was cleared of charges by the prosecution.

According to the legal community on the 17th, the Criminal Division 1 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Park Hyuk-soo) dismissed the charges against Lee last October 28.

Lee was sued for defamation by SBS in November 2018 after stating, "Considering the personal connections between former NIS Director Won Sei-hoon and SBS, I became convinced that the NIS was behind SBS's report."

The prosecution concluded that Lee's controversial statement did not meet the defamation crime requirement of 'stating facts' but was rather an expression of personal opinion, thus ruling that defamation charges could not be established.

The 'Nondureong Watch' controversy began on April 22, 2009, when KBS reported that Park Yeon-cha, chairman of Taekwang Industrial, had bribed former President Roh and his wife with Swiss luxury watches amid the ongoing Park Yeon-cha Gate investigation.

On May 13 of the same year, SBS reported that former President Roh testified during a prosecution investigation that "my wife (Mrs. Kwon Yang-sook) threw the watch away in the rice field in Bongha Village."

Former President Roh passed away on May 23, and controversy arose as Lee and other prosecutors at the time were pointed out as the likely masterminds behind the report.

As the controversy continued, Lee, who was residing in the United States in 2018, issued a statement claiming that the KBS report was made with the involvement of the NIS spokesperson office and that he had become convinced that the NIS was also behind the SBS report.

In response, SBS filed a lawsuit against Lee after an investigation by the Report Background Truth Investigation Committee found no evidence of NIS involvement in the report.

Lee reiterated his claim that the NIS was behind the 'Nondureong Watch' report in his upcoming memoir, I Was a Prosecutor of the Republic of Korea ? Who Killed Roh Moo-hyun?

He emphasized that the accurate statement by former President Roh was "my wife threw it away outside after the investigation began," and that the term 'Nondureong' does not appear anywhere in the investigation records.

In a press release for the memoir distributed the previous day, Jogabje.com stated that Lee had finalized the facts at the time and noted under the section titled "Piaget Watch and 6.4 Million Dollars" that "there is no dispute that Mrs. Kwon Yang-sook received two sets of Piaget men's and women's watches (valued at 205.5 million won) from Chairman Park Yeon-cha, and it is quite reasonable to view these watches as bribes delivered to then-President Roh Moo-hyun during his term (around September 2006)."

Lee expressed disappointment with the prosecution's political attitude, saying, "I cannot help but be disappointed by the prosecution dragging out a case that should have been dismissed without summons for four years," and added, "Left-wing figures including the Democratic Party claimed that I insulted former President Roh with the 'Nondureong Watch' and drove him to death, but the basis for those claims disappears with the dismissal of charges."

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