Embattled ex-defense minister defends military's actions during martial law

Kim Yong-hyun speaks at the National Assembly in this Nov. 28 photo. (Yonhap)

Former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun, currently being investigated in detention for insurrection and abuse of power charges, justified President Yoon Suk Yeol's Dec.3 martial law declaration and defended the military actions under his orders.

"The martial law was to eradicate the anti-state forces and to bequeath the free Korea to the future generation. ... We all know that the president declared the martial law upon my suggestion," he said in a statement released behind bars of the Eastern Detention Center of Seoul. "Since I gave the orders under the president's declaration of martial law, the commanders and soldiers are at no fault of their own. It is a justified and respectable fulfillment of their duties as members of the military."

Several military commanders are under investigation for the part they played in the military actions during the six-hour martial law on Dec.3-4. This included the recent arrests of Kim himself, Martial Law Commander Park An-su, Army's Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyeong, Capital Defense Command chief Lee Jin-woo, and former Defense Intelligence Commander Roh Sang-won.

Ex-minister Kim said the prosecution's ongoing investigation is "insulting to the military," claiming that they have not presented evidence or legal reasoning on why the martial law should be considered an act of insurrection.

Testimonies of high-ranking military commanders and government officials have shown that the military was ordered to arrest over a dozen prominent figures in the parliament, government, along with the president's most outspoken critics in the civilian sector. Troops were dispatched to the National Assembly and the National Election Commission, with the former defense chief saying that the deployment to the latter was to investigate the possibility of the past elections being rigged.

The National Intelligence Service recently reported to the parliament that its 2023 security inspection of the NEC did not reveal any indications of the supposed election rigging, in contrast to Yoon claiming via a public address on Dec. 12 that the NEC supposedly refusing the NIS' inspection.