Jeong Jeom-sig: West Sea official shooting case was the Lee administration’s successful model of “trial erasure”

[Financial News] Jeong Jeom-sig, floor leader of the People Power Party, said on the 8th that including the killing of the West Sea official among the subjects of investigation under the Special Counsel Act on Fabricated Prosecution, which passed a plenary session of the National Assembly led by the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), was “a successful model for canceling indictments, as dreamed of by President Lee Jae Myung.” Although the bill’s provision granting the power to cancel indictments was removed, he described the series of events in which many people involved in the killing of the West Sea official were acquitted and the Prosecution Service gave up its appeal as “a perfect successful model of trial erasure.”
Jeong said that day on social media (SNS), referring to the killing of the West Sea official: “It was the case in which the Moon Jae-in administration declared, without sufficient grounds, that the late Daejun Lee, a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) official who died in September 2020 after being shot by North Korean forces in the West Sea, had voluntarily defected to North Korea.”
Jeong said, “After the Lee Jae Myung administration took office, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) launched an internal audit into the cover-up of the killing of the West Sea official. People close to the defendants in the case, including the chief aide to No Eun-chae, former director of the NIS’s Office of Planning and Coordination, and the chief of staff to former NIS director Park Jie-won, joined the audit team. In the end, the NIS prepared audit materials tailored to the defendants’ preferences and submitted them to the court,” he explained.
He went on to write, “Former NIS director Park Jie-won raised in the media allegations that Ji Gui-yeon, the presiding judge in the first trial, had visited room salons, openly pressuring the court to issue acquittals. In the end, in December 2025, Judge Ji found all the major figures—including former NIS director Park Jie-won, former head of the Blue House Office of National Security Suh Hoon, and former NIS Office of Planning and Coordination director No Eun-chae—not guilty.”
Jeong alleged, “President Lee Jae Myung and Prime Minister Kim Min-seok then both stepped in and pressed the Prosecution Service to drop its appeal. Park Cheol-woo, head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office and a high-school junior of former NIS director Park Jie-won, then dropped all appeals concerning the key charges against major defendants, including Assemblyman Park Jie-won. Assemblyman Park and other key figures in the Moon Jae-in administration mobilized the NIS to prepare favorable materials and submit them to the court, threatened the judge, and pressured the prosecution to secure acquittals.”
Jeong predicted that this special counsel investigation into fabricated prosecutions would likewise unfold in the following order: government agencies submit materials tailored to their preferences; pressure on the court; the court issues acquittals; the prosecution drops its appeal; and political retaliation through a special counsel.
He said, “But President Lee Jae Myung’s fanciful dream will never come true.” He added, “That is because the public has already seen through this administration’s cunning method of erasing trials.”

[email protected] Lee Hae-ram Reporter