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Amid the growing controversy over the death of a South Korean public official by a North Korean soldier two years ago, the Coast Guard Command announced that it would step down at once.

He said he would take responsibility for this, but the presidential office did not accept his resignation, saying that the audit was still in progress.

The bereaved family said that the coast guard, who gave the wrong investigation result, confessed his conscience.



First news today (24th) This is reporter Son Ki-joon.



[ Reporter



] Nine members of the Coast Guard, including Chief of the Korea Coast Guard, Jeong Bong-hoon, announced their intention to resign this morning.



It is only two days after the public apology from the head of the Coast Guard, eight days after the announcement two years ago that there was no evidence of voluntarily defecting to North Korea of ​​a public official who was killed by a North Korean military attack.



Commissioner Jeong explained the reason for his resignation, saying that the Coast Guard came to the conclusion that the answer was to form a new command team to overcome this crisis.



In response, the presidential office said that the Coast Guard commander felt responsibility and respected the pure intention of expressing his resignation, but said that the general resignation will be rejected as work to find out the truth such as an audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection is in progress.



The bereaved family said it was natural for the Coast Guard commander to take responsibility, and urged that the two investigative officers at the time also resign.



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[Bereaved of Rae-Jin Lee / Dae-Jun Lee, the late family: I believe that the Coast Guard has made a confession of conscience in their own way by announcing the wrong investigation results.]



The bereaved family also participated in a meeting held at the National Assembly hosted by the People's Power and criticized the previous government's response. .



The Blue House and the government, who were informed of the incident, said they would thoroughly disclose what the deceased did before his death.



[Kim Ki-yoon / Attorney for the bereaved family: The first is to focus on what the South Korean government and former President Moon Jae-in did, and what he did for 6 hours…

.]



The bereaved family announced that they would accuse the prosecution of four additional people, including former first deputy chief of the National Security Office of the Blue House, Seo Joo-seok, and Yoon Seong-hyun, director of the Namhae Coast Guard, who was the head of the Coast Guard Investigation and Information Bureau at the time of the incident.



(Video coverage: Cho Chun-dong, video editing: Kim Jin-won, CG: Kim Hong-sik · Jo Su-in)