As the arrest warrant for Colonel Park Jeong-hoon was dismissed, it is being pointed out that the military prosecutors may have tried to detain him unreasonably. Colonel Park consistently claims that the essence of this case is not ‘resistance’ but ‘pressure from outside the investigation’. But not only Colonel Park… A recording of the Navy Prosecutor’s Office was also released, saying, “This is too scary, worrying about the possibility of the investigation being covered up. Please make sure the investigation records do not disappear from the world.” Like Colonel Park, prosecutor Lee also placed responsibility for Corporal Chae’s death on the division commander. He even said that it was reasonable to ask.
Reporter Kim Jae-hyeon reports this.
[Reporter]
This is a phone call between a Navy prosecutor and an investigator from the Marine Corps Investigation Team, released by the Military Human Rights Center.
The time of the call was when Colonel Park Jeong-hoon protested. On the 2nd of last month, when he was dismissed from his position on suspicion,
the prosecutor who reviewed the legal principles of Corporal Chae’s스포츠토토 case expressed his opinion that the Marine Corps 1st Division Commander Lim Seong-geun could be charged with manslaughter according to the unit management instructions. [Prosecutor from the Navy Prosecutors’ Team:
( Safety measures) should be supervised for the established areas, but to make matters worse, there was no such thing and practically nothing was paid…] In particular, I would like to say that I cannot
understand why no action was taken despite knowing that search activities were being carried out in the water.
[ Prosecutor from the Naval Prosecution Team: This is something that is provided to all vacationers and out-of-towners (regarding water safety), but wouldn’t it be ironic that it wasn’t emphasized to unit personnel (who searched for missing people)?]
At the same time, they also said they would send 6 related precedents.
The Navy prosecutors also believed that charges of manslaughter by the division commander could be applied.
In the phone call the next day, I am concerned that the investigation will be scaled back.
[Prosecutor belonging to the Navy Prosecutor’s Office: Can’t the military prosecutor start the entire investigation again from the beginning? So I’m a bit worried that there might be plans to start over from scratch. It’s so, so scary. I made a copy and stored it away. So that at least one does not disappear from the world.]
In fact, the Ministry of National Defense virtually discarded Colonel Park’s initial investigation results and handed over the results of the investigation, excluding the charge of manslaughter against the division commander, to the police.