Marine Corps Former Investigation Unit Chief "Ordered to Limit Investigation Results to Battalion Commander and Below"

Reported to the Ministry of National Defense Legal Affairs Officer: "I feel external pressure"
"The Ministry of National Defense had no interest in junior officers"

Regarding the investigation into the death of Corporal Chae Su-geun, Park Jeong-hoon, former head of the Marine Corps investigation unit who was booked by the military prosecution on charges of 'leading a collective defiance,' revealed that he received external pressure from the Ministry of National Defense to downplay the case.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 11th, Park met with reporters in front of the Ministry of National Defense prosecution team and said that during a phone call with Yoo Jae-eun, the Ministry of National Defense Legal Affairs Manager, at 9:43 a.m. on August 1, "the Legal Affairs Manager said that the charges should be limited to those who had direct negligence."

The call took place two days after Park reported the preliminary investigation results to Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop and received approval, and after sending the materials prepared for a press briefing to the National Security Office. Park said, "I asked if 'those with direct negligence' referred to the battalion commanders and below who ordered to enter the water directly," and the Legal Affairs Manager replied, "Yes."

Park then said, "That is viewing negligence narrowly. I considered the division commander and brigade commander also negligent in the death and judged the scope of negligence broadly," adding, "Since the police have investigative authority anyway, they can investigate and make the final judgment." He also told Yoo, "What you just said feels like external pressure. What would a third party think if they heard this? Such remarks are very dangerous. Please be careful with your statements," Park recounted. The day before, a Ministry of National Defense official denied the claim that Yoo told Park during the call to "remove the charges and the suspects and allegations."

However, the Ministry official said that the Legal Affairs Manager did mention, "There are various ways to transfer the case, such as removing the charges and only stating the facts or processing it as an official document to pass on the records."

When asked by reporters if the Ministry of National Defense withheld the transfer because it objected to applying charges to junior officers, Park claimed, "The Ministry had no interest at all in the junior officers."

He said that during the report to the Defense Minister on July 30, "The Defense Minister only asked, 'Should the division commander also be punished?' and did not mention junior officers at all." He added, "At some point, the Ministry started mentioning junior officers after seeing media reports. If that was their intention from the start, shouldn't they have at least provided safety ropes, let alone life jackets, when our soldiers went to such dangerous waters?" He criticized, then added, "I hope the command treats soldiers not as means or tools but as their own children and true comrades."

Regarding whether the investigation results were reported to the Presidential Office, Park said that on July 30, he heard from the Marine Corps Headquarters Policy Director that "the Presidential Security Office requested the investigation report," but he responded, "It cannot be done because the investigation is ongoing." However, he revealed, "Marine Corps Commander Kim Gye-hwan called and instructed that if the investigation documents cannot be sent, at least the press briefing materials should be sent, so I had no choice but to send the materials planned for the next day's briefing to Colonel Kim of the Security Office."

The Marine Corps investigation unit planned to brief the media on July 31 with the same materials sent to the Security Office, but later received instructions from the Ministry of National Defense to cancel the briefing and not to transfer the investigation results to the police until Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop returned from his business trip to Uzbekistan.

However, Park transferred the case to the Gyeongbuk Police Agency on the morning of August 2, and the Ministry of National Defense retrieved the case records from the police that same afternoon and conducted a raid on the Marine Corps investigation unit the following day.