South Korea: former president is being sued over death of government staffer

(MENAFN) The family of a dead South Korean government employee claims that the country's previous president neglected to secure his life and incorrectly depicted him as a defector to North Korea. Moon Jae-in was president from 2017 until 2022.

In September 2020, North Korean forces shot Lee Dae-jun, a South Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries officer, along the Yellow Sea maritime boundary. Lee had gone missing the day before while on duty on a fisheries inspection boat.

Officials in South Korea stated at the time that Lee was slain while attempting to defect to North Korea. However, in October, South Korea's Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) ruled that the Moon administration manipulated evidence and concealed elements of the case in order to portray the victim as a defector.

“The former president didn’t immediately get to work to rescue my brother even after learning that he was in North Korea’s territory,” Lee Rae-jin, the deceased official’s older brother, informed journalists previously this week. “The result of that neglect was the brutal murder of a South Korean citizen, who was also an employee of our government.”

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