Police on the 23rd summoned and are questioning Jeon Han-gil, a YouTuber and former Korean history instructor, on suspicion of defaming President Lee Jae-myung and Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok and spreading various falsehoods, including the claim that North Korea was involved in the May 18 pro-democracy uprising. This is the fourth time since February that Jeon has been questioned by police.
Jeon appeared at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Major Crime Investigation Unit on the morning of the same day and denied all major allegations, saying they were "groundless complaints and accusations and political retaliation."
Jeon said, "The remarks about the president and others were a unilateral claim by a guest on the YouTube program," adding, "I also said on the program that I did not share the guest's position."
In October last year, on his YouTube channel, Jeon said the president hid a 1 trillion won slush fund from the Daejang-dong project in Singapore and claimed there was an out-of-wedlock child between the president and Kim Hyun-ji, first private secretary in the Presidential Secretariat, leading to a complaint by the Democratic Party of Korea and others.
Regarding Lee Jun-seok's degrees, Jeon continued his claim that "it says he obtained bachelor's degrees in computer science and economics from Harvard, but the economics degree is false."
As for mentioning the "North Korean military involvement theory" about the May 18 pro-democracy movement on his YouTube channel, Jeon said he "only read what was reported," and regarding the claim of the "export of 900,000 barrels of Ulsan oil to North Korea," Jeon said it was "only a panelist's opinion."
After questioning Jeon three times earlier, police in April sought an arrest warrant on charges of defamation under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection and violation of the Framework Act on Telecommunications. However, the court rejected the warrant, saying, "It is hard to see a risk of evidence destruction or flight."