A South Korean marine colonel who faced insubordination and defamation charges after accusing President Yoon Suk Yeol of whitewashing his investigation into a marine’s death was acquitted by a court-martial on Thursday.
A public uproar over the case of Col. Park Jung-hun rocked South Korea for months last year, prompting opposition lawmakers to put forward a bill to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his allegations. The political confrontation intensified as Mr. Yoon vetoed the bill three times and the opposition threatened to impeach him.
Mr. Yoon eventually was impeached by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but for another reason: his six-hour imposition of martial law last month, during which he was accused of sending troops into the Assembly, which he said had tried to paralyze his government. He was also accused of ordering the arrests of his political enemies.
Months before that, the opposition had cited the prosecution of Colonel Park as an example of how Mr. Yoon’s government abused its authority to silence dissenting voices.
In its ruling on Thursday, a three-judge panel at the Central District Military Court in Seoul cleared Colonel Park of insubordination and defaming senior military officers. He had denied the charges, saying they were filed in retaliation for his efforts to hold senior officers in the South Korean Marine Corps accountable for the death of Lance Cpl. Chae Su-geun in July 2023.
Lance Corporal Chae and other marines had been sent to search for missing residents in central Seoul after the town was hit by floods, but they were given no life jackets and ordered to wear knee-high rubber boots that impeded their movement as they waded through the fast-moving, waist-deep floodwaters. Lance Corporal Chae was swept away and later found dead.
Colonel Park, who led an investigation into the incident, concluded that eight superior officers, including Maj. Gen. Im Seong-geun, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, had been responsible for Lance Corporal Chae’s death through negligence.
He later accused the Defense Ministry of whitewashing his inquiry and absolving top military brass of responsibility. He blamed Mr. Yoon, who he said “flew into a rage” after being told that his report held senior commanders responsible for the death. Colonel Park cited the Marine’s top commander as his source for his knowledge of Mr. Yoon’s outburst, but the commander denied making such a statement.
Colonel Park said he resisted pressure from the Defense Ministry to expunge the names of senior officers like Major General Im as criminal suspects, and that he sent his files, as required by law, to the national police for further investigation. The Defense Ministry retracted the files and later sent the police a revised version, which named only two of the original eight suspects, both of whom were lower-ranking lieutenant colonels.
Mr. Yoon has not addressed Colonel Park’s allegation against him and has not been charged in the case. But Colonel Park was indicted on charges of defaming his superiors and disobeying an order to postpone sending his files to the police.
In its ruling on Thursday, the military court panel said the insubordination charge could not stand because the Marines’ leadership had no right to delay sending Colonel Park’s findings to the police. It also said there was not enough evidence that the colonel had intended to defame his superiors.
The opposition’s efforts to launch a parliamentary investigation into Mr. Yoon’s role in Colonel Park’s case have been sidetracked by the political turmoil caused by his impeachment.
“There is a long way to go to find out the truth about the death of Lance Corporal Chae,” Colonel Park said at a news conference after the ruling on Thursday.