Family of slain fisheries official seeks US president's help
The older brother of the government official shot dead by North Korean soldiers sent a letter to US President Donald Trump seeking help on Friday, accusing a mass cover-up by the South Korean government concerning the killing of the civil servant in 2020.
Lee Rae-in, the brother of the deceased official, delivered the letter addressed to Trump to the US Embassy in Seoul, which reportedly said "We cannot expect the truth to be revealed under Lee Jae Myung administration."
Lee claimed that his younger brother did not voluntarily seek defection to the communist North, denying the announcement made by then-President Moon Jae-in's administration. He also claimed that the Moon administration was aware of entire process of the victim being found and shot by the North, and did nothing to rescue him.
The deceased, a civil servant of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, was shot by the North Korean forces near the de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea. The government at the time said he had been defecting to the North, based on the findings by the Defense Ministry and the Coast Guard.
Both agencies reversed their decision two years later after the launch of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. The National Intelligence Service under Yoon had accused the Moon administration of organized attempt to cover up the incident.
The Moon administration in 2021 was ordered by a court to release the records related to the incident, but rather than do so, the outgoing administration designated the information as presidential archives the following year. This effectively put the records out of reach, as the archived information is not released to the public for up to 30 years without approval from two-thirds of the lawmakers or a court warrant.
Seoul Central District Court on Dec. 26 acquitted five top-level security officials of the Moon administration: former national security adviser Suh Hoon, former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won, former Defense Minister Suh-wook, former Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Hong-hee, and former NIS chief secretary Noh Eun-chae. The court said that there was no evidence to suggest that the officials covered up the incident, or rigged the related evidence.
President Lee Jae Myung on Dec. 30 called the accusation "an indictment made with weird logic, which led to an acquittal," saying it makes no sense to investigate a non-case and send innocent men to prison.
But Lee and his family have raised suspicion that the Lee administration — of the same party as Moon — have been pressuring the judiciary, saying it was "yet another form of state's violence."
The Lee family held a press conference in front of the National Assembly at 10:20 a.m., urging the prosecution to appeal the court's decision.
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