Death in the Yellow Sea: Opposite Interpretations from the Life Vest to the SI. Why?

The Taegeukgi is reflected in the glass door of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Mun Jae-won

Prosecutors believe the death of a civil servant in the Yellow Sea was manipulated by the Moon Jae-in government into an attempt to defect to North Korea. Meanwhile, Suh Hoon, the former Cheongwadae national security advisor who was arrested and prosecuted for the case, refuted that they made a reasonable assumption based on limited information. Nothing significant has changed in the information obtained, including the special intelligence (SI), since then, but the interpretations presented by the two sides are completely opposite. In the request for Suh’s arrest warrant, prosecutors argued that the Moon Jae-in government’s assumption of an attempt to go North was a fabrication, but failed to present a specific explanation on how the late Lee Dae-jun, the civil servant in the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, entered North Korean waters.

Public Investigation Division 1 (chief prosecutor Yi Hui-dong) of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office concluded that the details of a report, the first official analysis of the SI by the defense ministry, on September 24, 2020 were false when applying for Suh’s arrest warrant. The prosecutors presented the grounds for their conclusion in detail.

The report claimed that there was a high possibility that the missing person (Lee) might have attempted to voluntarily go to North Korea. As for the grounds for reaching such a conclusion, the Ministry of National Defense stated the following: Unlike the other people on board, Lee was the only one wearing a life vest. When he went missing, slippers were discovered in the blind spot of a security camera on Mugunghwa No. 10. He was holding onto a small floating matter when he was discovered by the North Koreans. And when the North Koreans asked, Lee said he was defecting to North Korea.

Suh argued that the report was the result of a reasonable assumption. In the SI, North Korean authorities asked, “Is he defecting to the North?” and answered, “He’s defecting to the North.” In their conversation, they also said, “If he’s alive, save him” and “He’s asking security to save him,” which supports this argument.

In particular, the crew on Mugunghwa No. 10 stated that the slippers were not theirs. And the rope where the slippers were placed was prone to accidents, so the area was managed strictly. It was common sense among the crew not to stand near it or place anything near it. This was why the authorities assumed that the slippers were Lee’s.

However, the prosecutors said they could not find out whether Lee was wearing a life vest when he went from Mugunghwa No. 10 to the sea. When he was first discovered by North Korean soldiers in North Korean waters, he was wearing a vest with Chinese characters, but the life vests on Mugunghwa No. 10 were not printed with Chinese characters. In the warrant request, the prosecutors wrote that the Chinese characters were Chinese (language). They also argued that they could not conclude that the slippers were Lee’s.

They argued that according to the SI, Lee was exhausted, and that it was the North Korean officials who mentioned “defecting to North Korea.” They claimed Lee’s intention was never clearly confirmed. Even if Lee had said that he was defecting to North Korea, when the North Koreans asked, “How did you get here?” Lee did not answer for some time, and when he finally did speak, the words “go to North Korea” did not mean that he was defecting to North Korea, but that he had simply crossed the border into North Korea.

Suh refuted the prosecutor’s interpretation and said, “Despite that the prosecutors did not personally witness the scene at the time of the incident, I cannot understand how they can make such an argument.” Suh said he never received a report on the Chinese characters printed on the life vest back then. According to the prosecutors’ argument, some of the information related to Lee’s death was confirmed in an investigation after the report.

The prosecutors did not clearly state how Lee ended up in North Korea. The Board of Audit and Inspection mentioned circumstances suggesting that Lee moved to another boat in the audit result released in October, but the prosecutors did not mention this when requesting the arrest warrant.