Kim Hyun-tae, who commanded the Army Special Warfare Command's 707th Special Mission Group during the Dec. 3 martial law declaration, has been referred to prosecutors on charges of defaming Ahn Gwi-ryeong, a deputy spokesperson for the Presidential Office.
Seoul's Seocho Police Station referred Kim to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Sept. 2 without detention on charges of defamation through the spread of false information, according to police on the 17th. The case has been assigned to the prosecutors' office's first criminal division.
Kim is accused of stating that Ahn's actions in front of the main National Assembly building during the martial law episode — when she grabbed and pushed back the rifle of an armed martial law soldier — had been staged in advance.
Testifying on Dec. 9 last year as a witness in the trial of former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and others, Kim said members of his unit had seen Ahn preparing for filming and applying makeup, and argued that she attempted to seize the weapon as part of a staged situation.
Ahn filed a criminal complaint against Kim, with her side saying she had done nothing more than instinctively resist and defend herself in an urgent situation in which martial law troops were threatening her at gunpoint. "Those who carried out the insurrection and their sympathizers are trying to cast a citizen who resisted as a criminal in order to escape responsibility," her side said.
Police concluded that the charge of defamation through false statements was established after reviewing video from the National Assembly at the time and Ahn's movements. Kim denied the allegations during police questioning.
