Former Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo, who was accused of forcing military officers to sign documents related to the Defense Security Command's martial law review paper from the Park Geun-hye administration, was acquitted on appeal.
The Criminal Division 2-3 of the Seoul Western District Court of Appeals (Presiding Judge Lim Ki-hwan) on the 27th dismissed all of the prosecution's appeal in the appellate trial of the case against former Minister Song on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of another's rights.
The appeals against former Ministry of National Defense military adviser Jeong Hae-il and former Spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo, who were indicted on the same charge and acquitted at first instance, were also dismissed.
Song, who served during the Moon Jae-in administration, is suspected of having said on July 19, 2018, regarding the martial law review document drafted by the Defense Security Command (now the Defense Counterintelligence Command) under the Park Geun-hye administration, "The Defense Security Command's review of the garrison decree is not wrong," adding that "I think the same."
Afterward, controversy arose that former Minister Song's remarks were inappropriate. In response, he is suspected of drafting a statement of fact saying "I never made such remarks" and then coercing senior officials who attended the meeting at the time, including the Ministry of National Defense's policy planning chief, to sign it.
The first trial acknowledged that former Minister Song did make the remarks at the meeting, but found that they did not abuse their authority to force meeting attendees to sign the statement of fact, nor did they collude with each other.
In the appeal, prosecutors asked that former Minister Song be sentenced to two years in prison. Former Minister Song's side asked the court to dismiss the prosecution's appeal.
The appellate court also found the first-instance judgment to be sound. The appellate panel said, "At the time, the Ministry of National Defense was pursuing high-intensity reforms of the Defense Security Command, and defendant Song Young-moo does not appear to have had no sense of problem about such past Defense Security Command martial law documents or to have taken a passive stance on reforming the command," adding, "It appears the other defendants at the time were aware of that stance."
It went on, "There is room to view that the statement of fact was attempted internally for the objective purpose of securing grounds to again demand a correction," adding, "It is hard to see the attempt by aides and defendants Jeong Hae-il and Choi Hyun-soo to draft a statement of fact while collecting necessary materials as excessively unusual."
The court also said, "There was no reason to exclude as confirmers other attendees such as the Ministry of National Defense vice minister, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) vice minister, and the head of the U.S. military base project group, and the fact that they were excluded is a circumstance consistent with the defendants' claims," adding, "It is also hard to view that defendants Jeong Hae-il and Choi Hyun-soo, by preparing the statement internally, abused related authority to compel duties they were not obligated to perform."