The mother of the late Sergeant Lee Ye-ram/Reporter Moon Jae-won
“I know how parents feel when they lose a child, but we shouldn’t use it with that.”
The mother of the late Sgt. Lee Ye-ram cried out in court on the 6th. This is a statement to lawyer A, who ‘provided an opportunity for a special prosecutor’s investigation’ in the case of the death of a sergeant. Mr. A, who was charged with manipulating the ‘previous record’, appealed for leniency in court. However, the jury and judge sentenced him to three years in prison.
The 34th Division of the Criminal Agreement of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Kang Gyu-tae) conducted a public participation trial on Mr. A, who was charged with falsifying evidence and obstructing business, over the past 5 days and today.
Mr. A faked the so-called ‘previous record’ by using a text-to-speech (TTS) device in which a machine produces a human voice. The transcript contains the circumstances in which Jeon Ik-soo, former head of the Air Force’s legal office, directed the investigation without detention of Sgt.
Mr. A reported this recording to the Military Human Rights Center. The Military Human Rights Center disclosed the transcript in November of last year. Public opinion was inflamed, and the special prosecutor Ahn Mi-yeon’s investigation into the death of the sergeant began.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office found out an unexpected fact during the investigation. It was the capture of the situation in which the ‘transcript of the previous day’ was manipulated. The Special Prosecutor’s Office raided Mr. A’s residence and office in August and arrested him urgently. Mr. A, who was handed over to trial, applied for a public participation trial in the first trial last October.
In the public participation trial, the special prosecutor team said that Mr. A used the death of this sergeant with a grudge once morest Jeon Ik-soo, then head of the Air Force Headquarters Legal Office, who disciplined him while serving as a judicial officer at the Air Force Headquarters. The Special Prosecutor’s Office said, “Mr. A prepared for revenge meticulously for a long time, such as collecting internal information from the Air Force Headquarters Justice Office.” said
In addition, he said, “When the special prosecutor’s investigation was directed at him, he interfered with the investigation by not attending the special prosecutor or refusing to make a statement.” He continued, “I didn’t even care what kind of shock the bereaved family would be if false information was disclosed to the world, such as that photos of Sgt. At the same time, he requested that Mr. A be sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Mr. A’s lawyers admitted that Mr. A forged evidence. However, it was requested that the forged evidence be taken into account that it did not directly affect the case by submitting the forged evidence to a civic group rather than to the court. He also said, “(The fabricated transcript) served as an opportunity for the special prosecutor’s investigation.” It was also said that the investigation into this sergeant’s death case was poor, and that’s why they forged evidence that might have been. It is said that there was also an intention to find out the truth of this sergeant’s death case. The lawyers for Mr. A appealed to the jury for a sentence of probation, saying, ‘Mr. A’s younger brother made an extreme choice because of school violence, so to Mr. A, her younger brother and Sergeant Lee seemed to overlap.’
However, the judge and jury sentenced Mr. A to three years in prison. The judge said, “None of the jurors gave an opinion on probation.”
Sergeant Lee’s mother also attended the trial that day. After gaining her right to speak from the judge, he said, “Since the article was published on the day we wanted to use our daughter to achieve our goals, our couple had to go through a lot of pain. I know the feelings of parents who have lost a child, but we shouldn’t use it with that.”
