Supreme Court upholds sentence for former presidential officials for destroying public records

Baek Jong-chun, left, and Cho Myoung-gyon, exit from the Seoul High Court building in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Feb. 9 2022. [YONHAP]

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a ruling sentencing two former presidential officials to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for destroying the minutes of the 2007 inter-Korean summit. The ruling comes nearly a decade after the initial indictment.

Baek Jong-chun and Cho Myoung-gyon, national security aides for the late former president Roh Moo-hyun, were indicted in November 2013 on charges of violating the Act on the Management of Presidential Archives and damaging public records. Baek and Cho were accused of destroying the minutes to cover up Roh’s alleged offer to surrender the de facto western sea border with North Korea during the summit in 2007.

The lower courts initially acquitted both Baek and Cho, but the Supreme Court remanded the case in 2020 and the two were convicted in a retrial in February this year.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]