(2nd LD) Roh left alone before. after fall from cliff: police

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with police briefing; CHANGES headline, lead)
CHANGWON, South Korea, May 27 (Yonhap) -- Former President Roh Moo-hyun was left
alone by his security guard for at least 28 minutes after he jumped to his death
from a mountainside cliff near his rural home, police said Wednesday.

The latest revelation came after the security guard, the only person who
accompanied Roh on his last hike early Saturday morning, reversed his statements
on the details surrounding the former president's death, police said in a media
briefing.
The body guard, identified only by his family name of Lee, 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 km southeast
of Seoul.
The guard had insisted that he and the former president stayed together at Owl
Rock for about 20 minutes early Saturday morning before Roh suddenly jumped off
the rock. He also claimed that he carried Roh on his back to a car at the
residence immediately after his fall.
In a briefing on the results of its reinvestigation into the case, the Gyeongnam
Provincial Police Agency, which has jurisdiction over Roh's rural village of
Bongha, said the former president was left alone for a total of 31 minutes,
including the 28 minutes after his fall from the rock.
"Former President Roh fell from Owl Rock after sending his security guard on an
errand to a nearby temple at 6:14 a.m. The guard returned to the rock three
minutes later and found Roh at 6:45 a.m.," said Lee Woon-wu, commissioner of the
Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, in the briefing.
"For a total of 31 minutes, Roh was left alone. If Roh plunged from the cliff at
6:17 a.m., he was left abandoned at the bottom of the rock for at least 28
minutes," said the commissioner.
According to the police commissioner, 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. A mortuary tablet in honor of the former
president's deceased parents is enshrined at the temple.
Police investigators said the security guard, who belongs to the Presidential
Security Service, changed his statement, as contradictory evidence and eyewitness
accounts emerged in the days after Roh's death.
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, the investigators
said, speculating that the guard may have lied for fear of being punished for
dereliction of duty. He had also covered up his trip to Jongtowon temple during
the initial police probe.
"Security guard Lee may have made a false statement about the circumstances
surrounding Roh's death, as he was put under severe psychological pressure and a
sense of guilt for failing to protect the former president," said an
investigator.
Amid mounting suspicion surrounding the police probe into Roh's death, some
netizens are also raising questions over why the former president chose to write
his will on a computer instead of on paper.
In the brief suicide note stored in his laptop computer, the late Roh asked that
his body be cremated and a stone monument be set up in memory of him in Bongha
Village.
Meanwhile, a ranking aide for President Lee Myung-bak said that the presidential
office, Cheong Wa Dae, has instructed the Gyeongnam police agency to not miss any
detail in its ongoing probe into Roh's death.
"Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday ordered the Gyeongnam police agency to get to the
bottom of Roh's death and quell all public suspicion over his death," said the
official.
"Security guard Lee may have attempted to cover up his possible neglect of duty
by distorting the circumstances surrounding Roh's death. He could possibly face
disciplinary punishment, if necessary," the official said.
ycm@yna.co.kr
(END)