National Intelligence Service Director Lee Jong-seok said Thursday that two North Korean fishermen accused of killing 16 fellow crew members should have been returned to North Korea, offering his personal assessment of the 2019 forced-repatriation case that remains politically and legally contentious.
Lee made the remarks during a closed-door parliamentary audit of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee at the NIS headquarters in Seoul, according to Reps. Yoon Kun-young of the Democratic Party of Korea and Yoo Yeong-ha of the People Power Party, the ruling and opposition party secretaries of the committee, who briefed reporters afterward.
Asked whether it had been appropriate to send the fishermen back despite their stated intention to defect, Lee replied that, as his personal view, “it was right to send them back.”
The men, both in their 20s, were captured by South Korean authorities near the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea on Nov. 2, 2019. The Moon Jae-in administration repatriated them through the Panmunjom truce village five days later, after concluding they had confessed to killing 16 crew members aboard their squid-fishing vessel.
At the time, the Moon administration said the men were not eligible for protection under the law governing North Korean defectors because they were accused of serious nonpolitical crimes. It also said their stated intention to defect was not credible and that allowing them to resettle in South Korea could threaten public safety.
The decision prompted sharp criticism, particularly after footage released in 2022 showed one of the men resisting as South Korean officials handed them over to North Korean authorities. Critics argued that they should have been subject to a South Korean investigation and trial rather than repatriated.
The legal fallout has continued. Earlier this month, the Seoul High Court upheld convictions of former national security adviser Chung Eui-yong, former NIS Director Suh Hoon and former Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul over their roles in the repatriation, while acquitting former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min. The court ruled that the men’s basic rights had been violated by the decision to send them back.
During the same audit, Lee also dismissed reports that North Korea had recently conducted test broadcasts through loudspeakers aimed at South Korea.
Rep. Yoo said Lee told lawmakers that the report stemmed from a mistaken account by a resident of Daeseong-dong, a village near the inter-Korean border. Yoo said broader questions about North Korean loudspeaker activity should be addressed by the Defense Ministry.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
