A special counsel team looking into detained ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol's alleged insurrection blocked Morse Tan, former US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, from visiting Yoon's cell on the outskirts of Seoul on Wednesday.
Tan is now embroiled in a controversy here for his claims about election rigging in South Korea and about incumbent liberal President Lee Jae Myung.
With the special counsel team's measures effective starting Tuesday, Yoon has been barred from meeting anyone other than family or lawyers. He will remain behind bars until his indictment, assistant special counsel Park Ji-young told reporters Wednesday, indicating that Tan would not be an exception to the measures.
Yoon is being detained at Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, as he was rearrested last week while the special counsel probe into his Dec. 3, 2024, insurrection is underway.
Park's statement was in response to an announcement by Yoon's legal team on Tuesday that Tan would visit the prison and meet Yoon for about 10 minutes Wednesday afternoon, upon Tan's request. Following the special counsel's briefing, Yoon's legal representatives admitted that the planned meeting of Yoon and Tan "fell through."
Tan arrived in South Korea on Monday and was greeted by scores of Yoon's sympathizers at Incheon Airport.
Tan's visit came at the invitation of the Seoul Metropolitan Government to deliver a speech at a forum on North Korean human rights on Tuesday. As controversy grew, the Seoul city government canceled his speech.
He was also scheduled to deliver a special lecture at Seoul National University on Tuesday afternoon, in a session hosted by a far-right group. Seoul National University, however, disallowed the event to take place at a prearranged campus venue. Instead, the organizer moved the event outside near the campus' front gate.
Tan, who served as the first Asian American ambassador-at-large in US history and was formerly dean of Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Virginia, has claimed that elections in South Korea, including the recent presidential election in June, were being rigged due to China's influence.
"What they could not completely win with bullets, they're using weapons like fake ballots," Tan said at the outdoor event near the Seoul National University campus Tuesday. "President Yoon saw the dangers from the Chinese Communist Party and from North Korea and the dangers of fraudulently stolen elections."
Tan also repeated a baseless claim of President Lee Jae Myung having been involved in the sexual assault and murder of a young woman, which prevented him from completing his secondary education.
The claim, originally made at a press event in June at the National Press Club in Washington, has been disproven in a South Korean court.
In the same press event, Tan alleged that South Korea's National Election Commission attacked people who tried to raise questions about the possibility of election fraud.
consnow@heraldcorp.com
