Roh jumped to his death in absence of security guard: police

GIMHAE, South Korea, May 27 (Yonhap) -- The death of former President Roh
Moo-hyun will be entirely reinvestigated, as the sole security guard who
accompanied him on his last hike was found to have lied about the details
surrounding his death, police said Wednesday.
A regional police chief in charge of the probe told reporters it has been
confirmed that Roh jumped to his death from a mountainside cliff near his rural
home on Saturday morning in the absence of the security guard.
The body guard, identified only by his family name Lee, had initially claimed
that he personally witnessed Roh plunging from the 30-meter-high "Owl Rock," just
behind the late Roh's residence in Bongha Village, Gimhae, about 450 kilometers
southeast of Seoul.
As contradictory evidence and eyewitness accounts emerged, however, the security
guard changed his statement, saying he was not with the former president at the
moment he leapt from the rock.
"It is believed that former President Roh fell from Owl Rock after sending his
security guard on an errand to a nearby temple," Lee Woon-wu, commissioner of the
Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, said.
According to the police commissioner, Roh arrived at Owl Rock at 6:14 a.m. with
security guard Lee and asked him for a cigarette. Three minutes later, Roh
instructed his guard to go to Jongtowon Temple, a small Buddhist temple about 200
meters further up the mountain, to see if the head monk was present, the
commissioner saod.
A mortuary tablet in honor of the former president's deceased parents is
enshrined at the temple.
"Roh may have plunged from Owl Rock while alone. The security guard belatedly
looked for the missing former president and spotted him at 6:45 a.m. The guard
then carried Roh on his back to a car at the residence before rushing him to a
nearby hospital," said the commissioner.
Investigators at the Gyeongnam police agency said they have been confused by the
security guard's conflicting accounts about the circumstances leading to Roh's
apparent suicide.
At one point, the security guard had said he was turning away an approaching
citizen at the moment the former president fell from the cliff, investigators
said, speculating that the guard may have lied for fear of being punished for
dereliction of duty.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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