South Korean Officials Convicted Over Forcibly Sending North Koreans Home

In 2019, two North Korean fishermen confessed to murdering 16 shipmates ​before they fled to South Korea by boat​ and sought asylum.​ The then-progressive government in ​the South denied them refugee status ​or a trial there and, in an unprecedented move, sent them back to the North​.

​That decision triggered ​not only a political firestorm at the time​ but also criminal charges against four senior officials prosecuted after the current conservative government, with a more hard-line stance against North Korea, took power in Seoul in 2022.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel in the Seoul Central District Court found the four top national security aides to former President Moon Jae-in guilty of abusing their official power when they sent the fleeing North Korean fishermen back. The court announced prison sentences but decided not to impose them immediately, indicating in its verdict that it considered the criminal charges against the​ officials to be politically motivated under Mr. Moon’s successor, President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The four former officials — Mr. Moon’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong; his director of national intelligence, Suh Hoon; his presidential chief of staff, Noh Young-min; and his unification minister, Kim Yeon-chul — were sentenced to six to 10 months in prison. But the sentences were suspended for two years, after which they will be removed.

The criminal charges the four faced were the first of their kind in South Korea and reflect the polarization between the country’s two main political parties when it comes to dealing with its decades-old foe North Korea.​

When South Korea captured the two North Korean fishermen, then ages 22 and 23, in its waters in 2019​, they were no ordinary defectors. They confessed that they fled after killing the captain and 15 other crewmen on their boat with ​hammers, dumping​ their bodies into the sea.