Blue House bigwig questioned over 2019 repatriation of fishermen

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Blue House bigwig questioned over 2019 repatriation of fishermen

Noh Young-min, who served as the Blue House chief of staff from 2019 to 2020, answers questions at a parliamentary audit of the National Security Office at the National Assembly in Yeouido, southern Seoul on Nov. 4, 2020. [YONHAP]

Noh Young-min, who served as the Blue House chief of staff from 2019 to 2020, answers questions at a parliamentary audit of the National Security Office at the National Assembly in Yeouido, southern Seoul on Nov. 4, 2020. [YONHAP]

 
Prosecutors on Wednesday summoned a former Blue House official for questioning over his role in the government's 2019 decision to repatriate two North Korean fishermen caught on the South Korean side of the East Sea.  
 
Noh Young-min, who was chief of staff to President Moon Jae-in from 2019 to 2020, is suspected of having intervened in the case to push for the fishermen’s deportation back to the North against their wishes.
 
The former chief of staff underwent questioning at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday.
 
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.  
 
The two North Korean 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.
 
But the release of photos and a video by the Unification Ministry 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 sparked a political firestorm and rage from human rights groups, as well as calls for the prosecution of high-ranking officials in the Moon administration.  
 
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.
 
In a different case, the state prosecution service has also requested arrest warrants for former Defense Minister Suh Wook and former Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Hong-hee for their alleged roles in tampering or fabricating evidence to support the Moon administration’s conclusion that a South Korean fisheries official intended to defect when he disappeared from duty in the Yellow Sea and was killed by North Korean soldiers in September 2020.
 
The liberal Democratic Party (DP) blasted the state prosecution service on Wednesday for pursuing what it believes are politically motivated probes against Moon-era officials.
 
DP floor leader Park Hong-keun accused President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration of masterminding the investigations into his predecessor’s handling of fishermen’s repatriation and the fisheries official’s death.
 
“It is obvious that the presidential office is the mastermind,” he said.
 

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