"Yoon has such a big appetite that guards are troubled"... Defense team bristles at Seoul Detention Center insider claims

[The Financial News] A claim has emerged that former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is being held at the Seoul Detention Center, has been making inappropriate complaints to correctional officers.
On December 19, former Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice Ryu Hyuk appeared on the MBC Radio program "Kim Jong-bae's Focus" and relayed what he described as the hardships faced by guards in connection with Yoon Suk Yeol’s life in custody at the Seoul Detention Center.
Ryu said, "This is what I heard recently in conversations with correctional officers," adding, "The former president has expressed complaints to the guards such as 'Give me more coffee' and 'The side dishes are poor.'"
He went on, "While serving as Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice, I had opportunities to talk with correctional officers," and continued, "From the guards’ perspective, his attitude when responding to interviews with them is uncomfortable because it comes across as dismissive of them. And when he does get a chance to meet them, he reportedly offers no words of comfort to the guards who have struggled because of him, and instead only vents about what he personally finds inconvenient."
He added, "For example, he might say he wants to drink more coffee or complain that the side dishes are inadequate. To quote the guards’ own words, it has reached the point where they say, 'Isn’t he someone with a really voracious appetite?'"
Ryu further commented, "I was told that he complains so much about matters related to food and daily living that the guards are reluctant to meet with him."
Ryu, who served as Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice, previously refused to attend a countermeasures meeting convened by then Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae immediately after Martial Law was declared on December 3, 2024, and tendered his resignation.
In response to a question asking whether these issues could simply be resolved through his inmate deposit, Ryu answered, "He is trying to satisfy desires that cannot be met through his inmate deposit by using these interviews," and added, "By making one-sided demands, he seems to have left the guards thinking, 'So he was this greedy,' and feeling disappointed."
Regarding the matter, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) stated that it could not confirm whether the allegations were true.
Meanwhile, attorney Yu Jeong-hwa, a member of the former president’s defense team, said of the remarks, "The comments by this person, Ryu Hyuk, are nothing more than a malicious account based not on objective evidence but on hearsay allegedly passed on by anonymous correctional officers."
She continued, "As an inmate, former President Yoon Suk Yeol is living in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations and is faithfully following the instructions of the correctional authorities," and argued, "It is highly inappropriate for indirect and unverified accounts evaluating the personality or attitude of an individual held in a detention center to be made public."
She went on to say, "Any complaints raised about an inmate’s meals or treatment are made strictly within the scope of the minimum rights guaranteed by law, and to distort this by using sensational expressions such as 'big appetite' is clearly an unjust attack that goes beyond a mere assessment of character."
moon@fnnews.com Reporter Moon Young-jin Reporter