Ex-president Roh remembered 14 years since his tragic death

Kwon Yang-sook, the former first lady and Roh’s wife, and the Moon Jae-in presidential couple attend a memorial ceremony held in Bonghwa on Tuesday. (Yonhap)

Political bigwigs on Tuesday flocked to Bongha, a neighborhood in South Gyeongsang Province some 290 kilometers south of Seoul, to honor the late President Roh Moo-hyun who took his own life 14 years ago today.

President Yoon Suk Yeol sent flowers, his office said, and the previous President Moon Jae-in attended the memorial ceremony held in Bongha -- Roh’s hometown where he returned after the end of his presidential tenure in 2008.

Leaders of both the ruling People Power Party and the Democratic Party of Korea attended Tuesday’s ceremony where a crowd of grieving supporters gathered.

Roh died while being investigated as a suspect in a corruption scandal. His abrupt death forced the criminal investigation to be closed, before the allegations against him -- that he had accepted bribes during presidency -- could be substantiated.

He remains a controversial figure to this day, and the investigation that never ended is still a contentious political subject.

In March, a top prosecutor who investigated Roh published a memoir in which he claimed the corruption allegations from more than a decade ago to be true. The foundation named after the late president, headed by Moon’s prime minister Chung Sye-kyun, dismissed the memoir as “political maneuvering.”

South Korea’s liberal bloc sees Roh as an innocent victim of a politically motivated investigation by prosecutors.

The Democratic Party of Korea head Rep. Lee Jae-myung said on this day that Roh was “bruised and covered with scars from attacks by the establishment.” Rep. Park Kwang-on, the party’s floor leader, said his party “should return to the legacy of Roh.”

In a notable move as a conservative president, Yoon has expressed on more than one occasion admiration for Roh.

In a morning briefing held on this day last year, Yoon said Roh’s death was a “truly regrettable and tragic” moment in South Korean politics. As a candidate, he also said that he would remember the late president and his journey “in (his) heart.”

Roh, who was a judge-turned-lawyer before entering politics, is one of the first politicians to be followed by a fandom.

If you’re thinking about self-harm or suicide, contact the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s helpline 1393, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.