Former Deputy Defense Minister Calls President Yoon Twice on the Day of Retrieving Records of the Chae Sang-byeong Incident

Phone Call Immediately After Yoon-Im Gihoon Conversation... Close Contact Between Presidential Office and Ministry of National Defense
Legal Management Office "Im Seonggeun Has Faults but Only States Facts," Opinion Presented

On August 2 of last year, when the Marine Corps Investigation Unit transferred the records of the death-in-the-line-of-duty case of Corporal Chae to the police, then Vice Minister of National Defense Shin Beom-cheol made two phone calls to President Yoon Seok-yeol, it has been revealed. In addition to the previously known '10-second call' between President Yoon and former Vice Minister Shin, it was uncovered that they had an additional call lasting over 8 minutes. Furthermore, circumstances indicating close communication between the Presidential Office and the Ministry of National Defense were also confirmed.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to communication records submitted to the military court on the 26th, former Vice Minister Shin called President Yoon’s personal mobile phone at 1:30 p.m. on August 2 last year and spoke for 8 minutes and 45 seconds. This was right after President Yoon had called then National Security Office Defense Secretary Im Ki-hoon at 1:25 p.m. and talked for 4 minutes and 51 seconds. About two hours later, at 3:40 p.m., former Vice Minister Shin called President Yoon again and spoke for 3 minutes and 36 seconds. It was previously revealed that former Vice Minister Shin received a call from President Yoon at 4:21 p.m. on the same day and spoke for 10 seconds.

According to recently confirmed call records, President Yoon also called former Minister Lee Jong-seop three times between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. on that day, using his personal mobile phone number, speaking for a total of about 18 minutes. Approximately 27 minutes after that, calls between President Yoon, former Secretary Im, and former Vice Minister Shin were made in sequence.

Besides President Yoon, evidence also surfaced of multiple communications between the Presidential Office and the Ministry of National Defense on that day. Former Vice Minister Shin and former Secretary Im had three calls between 11:29 a.m. and 1:54 p.m. This was right after Marine Corps Commander Kim Gye-hwan reported to former Minister Lee about the insubordination of former Marine Corps Investigation Unit Chief Park Jeong-hoon. Subsequently, former Vice Minister Shin made five calls to Yoo Jae-eun, Legal Affairs Officer at the Ministry of National Defense, between 2:17 p.m. and 3:09 p.m., totaling about 3 minutes of conversation. Yoo also received a call at 4:59 p.m. from a number starting with '02-800', a general phone line of the Presidential Office, and spoke for 2 minutes and 39 seconds.

Additionally, former Vice Minister Shin called Kim Yong-hyun, Chief of the Presidential Security Service, at 9:02 a.m. and spoke for 3 minutes and 6 seconds, and there is also a record of a call with former Presidential Office Public Service Discipline Secretary Lee Si-won. These calls have drawn attention because the Marine Corps Investigation Unit transferred eight officers, including then 1st Marine Division Commander Im Seong-geun, to the Gyeongbuk Police Agency on charges of professional negligence causing death around 10:30 a.m. that day. Later, the Ministry of National Defense prosecution team filed charges against former Marine Corps Investigation Unit Chief Park Jeong-hoon for insubordination and then retrieved the case around 7:20 p.m.

At a recent legislative hearing on the Special Prosecutor Act for Corporal Chae held in the National Assembly, former Minister Lee, former Vice Minister Shin, and former Secretary Im all remained silent about the content of the calls at that time.

The High-ranking Officials’ Crime Investigation Unit is investigating suspicions that the Presidential Office intervened in the retrieval of case records through close communication.

It is known that the investigation unit has secured or is in the process of securing the necessary communication data for this purpose.

A document suspected to have served as a kind of 'guideline' for the Ministry of National Defense’s re-examination results by the investigation headquarters was also disclosed. The two-page document titled 'Review Results on the Request for Opinion Regarding the Marine Corps Death Case' was prepared by the Legal Affairs Officer’s Office on August 14 last year after receiving a request from the investigation headquarters to provide opinions on the Marine Corps Investigation Unit’s investigation results. In this document, the Legal Affairs Officer’s Office judged that regarding former Division Commander Im Seong-geun, who was initially included as a suspect by the Marine Corps Investigation Unit, "there was negligence such as failing to properly devise safety control measures related to the search operation, but the causal relationship with the death is unclear, so additional review by the police is necessary," and recommended that the facts be stated and related persons be listed before notification. Following this opinion, the investigation headquarters only stated the facts for former Division Commander Im and three others, while judging two battalion commanders as suspects and transferred the case to the police on the 24th of the same month.

Originally, the investigation headquarters had prepared an initial report on August 9 last year, after re-examining the records under former Minister Lee’s directive, indicating that six people including former Division Commander Im were suspected, but after the Legal Affairs Officer’s opinion was presented, the number of suspects was reduced to two. Whether former Minister Lee and others exerted external pressure during this process is also one of the targets of the investigation by the High-ranking Officials’ Crime Investigation Unit.