The Sewol Ferry Special Investigation Corps freely dismissed former President Park Geun-hye, former presidential secretary general Kim Ki-chun, and former Justice Minister Hwang Gyo-an, who were suspicious of external pressure and illegal inspections related to the Sewol ferry disaster. Most of the other suspicious cases were closed without charges.
Park Geun-hye, Kim Ki-chun, Hwang Gyo-an, etc.
The special team announced the results of the final investigation on the 19th, six years and nine months after the incident and one year and two months after the formation of the special group. The special team was created under the direct control of Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol in November 2019, as suspicions about the Sewol ferry did not go away despite four prosecution investigations.
The special group, which has been investigating 17 cases largely, including the case of suing and accusation of the surviving family such as the 4/16 Sewol Ferry Family Council, and the request for investigation by the Special Investigation Committee on Social Disaster Two cases were transferred to another investigative agency. Only two cases were prosecuted: the case of interfering with the investigation by the Special Investigation Committee of the Sewol ferry disaster and the case of lack of rescue instructions by the Coast Guard command.
The Special Forces dealt with allegations of external pressure during the investigation and inspection of the Sewol ferry, which were the core suspicions, and allegations of illegal inspections. This includes former President Park Geun-hye, who has been investigated on charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of work in relation to the suspicion of illegal inspection of the survivors of the Sewol ferry by intelligence agencies such as the security guard and the National Intelligence Service.
The special group explained that it is true that former President Park and others have received a report describing the trends of the families of the Sewol ferry from a security officer, but the fact that the Blue House ordered or received a report on the family inspection of the Sewol ferry was not confirmed.
Special Director of the Sewol ferry “The survivors may be disappointed, but we couldn’t make a case that didn’t work”
Earlier, in December 2018, the prosecution aroused controversy by handcuffing former Kim Jae-soo commander, who voluntarily attended the warrant deliberation on this matter. He has always denied the charges, and despite dismissing the warrant, he made an extreme choice a few days later.
Regarding the NIS’ suspicion of inspections, it was acknowledged that “Former NIS chiefs Nam Jae-jun and Lee Byeong-ki, etc., identified the trends of the family members of the Sewol ferry and wrote a related report, but they only collected information disclosed to the media through press conferences and abused their authority. It was difficult to see it as,” he explained.
At the time, the Minister of Justice Hwang Gyo-an and the then Civil Service Secretary Woo Byeong-woo of the Blue House instructed prosecutors of Gwangju district prosecutors who were investigating the 123 suit of the Coast Guard in July-October 2014 to “exclude the charges of negligent manslaughter (upper) in business.” The suspicion did not lead to prosecution. The special group said, “It seems that there was a presentation of the opinion of the Ministry of Justice (in the process of applying the charges), and there was an inappropriate aspect in light of the independence and neutrality of the prosecution investigation.” However, it was difficult to determine whether there was an order from the Ministry of Justice. We considered the fact that we did not object to the prosecution’s conclusion that it would apply the prosecution.” The allegations of the Blue House’s external pressure event against the Auditor’s Office, including Kim Jeon’s chief executive officer, were also dismissed on the grounds that “there is no evidence to admit that the suspects pressured the auditors to prevent the Blue House audit.
It was concluded that the suspicion of manipulation of AIS track data raised by broadcaster Kim Eo-jun was also not true. Kim made the movie’Ghost Ship’ based on this content, claiming that someone intentionally sank the Sewol ferry, and that the AIS, which records the ship’s route, was manipulated. As a result of comparing and analyzing the original AIS submitted by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, the AIS of private merchant ships, and the data of overseas AIS collectors, the track announced by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and the original AIS text was confirmed at 23 AIS base stations. It was confirmed that the track was matched.
The special team decided to reassign the suspicion of manipulation of the Sewol ferry image storage device (DVR) to the special inspection team of the Sewol ferry, which will be launched in the future. did.
Special Director Lim Kwan-hyuk said, “When viewed from outside the bereaved family, the results of the investigation may not be as expected, but you may be disappointed, but as a lawyer, you could not make a’case that does not work. We did everything we could according to the laws and principles.”
Reporter Kang Kwangwoo [email protected]