A South Korean Marine Corps colonel was found not guilty by a military court on Thursday after accusing President Yun Seok-Yeol of cheating on the investigation into the death of a Marine and was charged with insubordination and defamation.
The public uproar over the Park Jong-hoon case rocked South Korea for several months last year, prompting opposition lawmakers to introduce a bill to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the colonel’s charges. Political tensions intensified as Yun vetoed the bill three times and opposition parties threatened to impeach him.
Yoon was ultimately impeached by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but for other reasons. Last month, he was accused of attempting to paralyze the public’s spirit by invoking martial law for six hours, during which he sent troops into parliament. government. He is also suspected of ordering the arrest of a political opponent.
Months earlier, opposition parties had cited Park’s prosecution as an example of the Yun administration abusing its power to silence dissent.
In Thursday’s ruling, a three-judge panel of the Seoul Central District Military Court acquitted Colonel Park of insubordination and defamation of military leaders. He has denied the charges, claiming he was charged in retaliation for his efforts to hold senior South Korean Marine officers responsible for Lance Corporal’s death. Choi Soo Geun in July 2023.
Corporal Choi and other Marines were sent to search for missing residents after flooding flooded central Seoul, but they were not given life jackets and were forced to wear knee-high rubber boots that made walking difficult. I was ordered to wear them. Fast-moving, waist-deep floodwaters. Corporal Choi was swept away and later found dead.
Colonel Park, who led the investigation into the incident, concluded that eight senior officers, including Maj. Gen. Lim Sung-geun, commander of the 1st Marine Division, were responsible for Corporal Choi’s negligent death.
He later accused the Defense Ministry of covering up his investigation and absolving military leaders of responsibility. He blamed Yun, saying he was “furious” when he heard in Yun’s report that senior commanders were responsible for the deaths. Col. Park cited the commander in chief of the Marine Corps as a source of information about Yoon’s outbursts, but the commander denied such statements.
Col. Park said he resisted pressure from the Defense Ministry to remove the names of senior officers like Maj. Gen. Lim as criminal suspects and sent the files to the National Police for further investigation as required by law. The Ministry of Defense withdrew the file and later sent a revised version to police, which named only two of the original eight suspects, both junior lieutenant colonels.
Mr. Yoon did not address Park’s allegations against him, and he has not been charged in the case. However, Colonel Park was charged with defaming his superiors and disobeying an order to postpone sending the file to the police.
In its ruling Thursday, the Military Tribunal Committee said the Marine Corps leadership had no right to delay sending the findings of Park’s investigation to police, so the charge of insubordination could not be established. It also said there was not sufficient evidence that the colonel intended to defame his superiors.
Opposition efforts to launch a parliamentary investigation into Yoon’s role in the Park incident have been sidetracked by the political turmoil caused by his impeachment.
“We have a long way to go to uncover the truth behind Corporal Choi’s death,” Col. Park said at a press conference after Thursday’s verdict.
