South Korean prosecutors on Thursday indicted former Intelligence Service Director Park Jie Won and former Defense Minister Suh Wook on several charges of lying about the circumstances of the 2020 death of a fisheries ministry official at the hands of North Korea.
Park and Suh are charged for their involvement in the unsubstantiated story that the victim was shot by the North Korean Coast Guard while attempting to defect, a day after he disappeared from the boat on which he was carrying out work for the ministry.
At the time, the government of then President Moon Jae In concluded that the 47-year-old victim was shot dead while attempting to defect to his northern neighbor across their shared border in the Yellow Sea. However, last June, a new investigation by the South Korean Coast Guard and the South Korean Army ruled out that first version.
Following this, the Seoul Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against Park and Suh on Thursday for ordering their subordinates not only to delete internal reports that contradicted this first version, but also to prepare others that reaffirmed the government’s conclusions.
While the two have been charged, the prosecution has not issued an order for them to be detained for now, Yonhap news agency reports.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
