Seoul: Former President Moon Jae-in on Friday criticized the prosecution for indicting him on bribery charges, describing the indictment as "unjust" and indicative of the prosecution's abuse of power. Moon, who served as president from 2017 to 2022, made these remarks during a meeting with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik, a day after prosecutors filed charges against him related to allegations of facilitating his former son-in-law's employment at a Thai airline.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Moon expressed that the indictment seemed abrupt, coming while he was coordinating with prosecutors to verify the facts. He accused the prosecutors of being politicized and suggested that their actions appeared to follow a predetermined course. Moon and his daughter, Da-hye, face accusations of receiving bribes through salary and other payments to her ex-husband, surnamed Seo, by the airline.
Seo was reportedly appointed executive director at the airline in 2018 after Lee Sang-jik, the airline's founder, was appointed head of the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency. Prosecutors suspect that Lee's appointment was made in exchange for Seo's hiring, despite his lack of experience in the airline industry. Moon allegedly stopped financially supporting his daughter's family after Seo's employment, with prosecutors considering the approximately 217 million won (US$151,125) paid to Seo and Da-hye as a bribe to Moon.
After his meeting with Woo, Moon attended a ceremony commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, a landmark agreement he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in April 2018. The declaration aimed to improve inter-Korean relations and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, though many of its initiatives stalled under his conservative successor, former President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Moon criticized Yoon's hard-line policy on North Korea, including the scrapping of the 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction accord, emphasizing the need to resume talks with Pyongyang. He stressed that restoring the inter-Korean military agreement is crucial to avoid military clashes and called the idea of South Korea pursuing nuclear armament a "dangerous" proposition. Moon warned that such a move could legitimize North Korea's nuclear development, undermine denuclearization efforts, and isolate South Korea internationally.