Moon's aide says repatriating fishermen was right move

A former Blue House official questioned Wednesday about the 2019 repatriation of two North Korean fishermen defended the government's decision as being in the "national interest."

In a photograph released by the Unification Ministry in July, the first of the two North Korean fishermen to be repatriated via Panmunjom on Nov. 7, 2019 drags his feet as he is forced to return to the North. [UNIFICATION MINISTRY]

A former Blue House official questioned Wednesday about the 2019 repatriation of two North Korean fishermen defended the government's decision as being in the "national interest."

Noh Young-min, who was chief of staff to President Moon Jae-in from 2019 to 2020, is suspected by prosecutors of having intervened in the case to push for the fishermen's deportation back to the North against their wishes — and to placate Pyongyang.

Prosecutors questioned Noh for approximately 12 hours and 30 minutes on Wednesday, with the former chief of staff leaving the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office at 9:30 p.m.

The two fishermen crossed the inter-Korean maritime border in the East Sea and were taken into custody by the South Korean Navy on Nov. 2, 2019.

Accused of killing the captain and 15 fellow crew members aboard their fishing vessel, the pair was repatriated via the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom five days later after the Moon government decided their desire to defect was not genuine, and that they could not be admitted as defectors because of their alleged crimes.

Noh, who presided over a meeting at the Blue House where the repatriation was decided, was accused in a criminal complaint by the conservative People Power Party of having committed abuse of power, illegal confinement and dereliction of duty in his handling of the fishermen's case.

In a statement released after he left questioning, Noh argued that the Moon administration's decision to send the fishermen back to the North was the correct course of action.

"Our people's lives and safety come first, and the peaceful management of the division [of the Korean Peninsula] is the government's constitutional duty," he said.

"Turning a security-related issue, and inter-Korean relations based on the national interest, into an act of politically-motivated revenge against a former presidential administration is akin to hacking at one's own heel with an axe."

The fishermen's repatriation re-emerged as a major political controversy after the Unification Ministry released photos and a video in July showing the fishermen dragging their feet and falling to the ground as they were forced by South Korean officials to return to the North.

Critics of the Moon administration's decision allege that Seoul was trying to curry favor with Pyongyang by sending the pair back to the North.

Prosecutors are also expected to summon former Director of National Security Chung Eui-yong and former National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon over allegations that they meddled with a probe into the fishermen's alleged crimes and removed mention of their desire to defect from an official report.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]