Former 7th Brigade Commander Park Sang-hyun and former 11th Field Artillery Battalion Commander Choi Jin-kyu (Lieutenant Colonel) of the Marine Corps 1st Division, who led the search operation for the missing persons during the death incident of Corporal Chae, appeared at the Marine Corps special investigation team on the 25th.
On that day, Special Investigator Jeong Min-young noted in a morning briefing, "We are summoning Brigade Commander Park and Lieutenant Colonel Choi for investigation on charges of negligent homicide in the course of duty."
Former Brigade Commander Park arrived at the special investigation office in Seocho-gu, Seoul, at 9:24 a.m. He entered the office without responding to questions from reporters such as, "Did Division Commander Im Seong-geun explicitly give the order for underwater search?", "Wasn't surface search the original guideline?", and "Why was the underwater search not stopped when the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion was conducting it?"
Lieutenant Colonel Choi arrived at the special investigation office dressed in Marine Corps combat uniform at 10:07 a.m. He did not answer questions regarding whether he was deployed without knowing about the missing persons search operation or if he understood the checkerboard search guideline as an underwater search before entering the office.
The special investigation team plans to investigate the deployment of the Marine Corps 1st Division in the disaster recovery operation in Yecheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do, from July 17 to 19, 2023, and the actions of former Marine Corps 1st Division Commander Im Seong-geun at that time.
Previously, former Brigade Commander Park was summoned for investigation on the 18th, while Lieutenant Colonel Choi was summoned on the 20th.
On July 17, 2023, former Brigade Commander Park was deployed as the Commander of the 2nd Rapid Reaction Force of the Marine Corps 1st Division in the disaster recovery operation in the Yecheon area of Gyeongsangbuk-do, alongside the 3rd, 7th, and 11th battalions. At that time, he was in a position to receive reports and issue commands from the artillery battalion commanders as the senior on-site commander.
Lieutenant Colonel Choi is accused of negligent homicide in the course of duty for giving an order to the personnel on site during the disaster recovery operation in July 2023, instructing them to "enter the water up to the waist to find the missing persons," which led to Corporal Chae's death.
Lieutenant Colonel Choi was the senior among the artillery battalion commanders deployed in the disaster recovery operation in the Yecheon area of Gyeongsangbuk-do in July 2023. He directly communicated with former 7th Brigade Commander Park Sang-hyun (Colonel), who served as the Commander of the 2nd Rapid Reaction Force, while commanding on-site.