South Korean police have dismissed a defamation case against Morse Tan, a professor at Liberty University in the United States, who was accused by a civic group of spreading a false claim that President Lee Jae-myung had been detained in a juvenile detention center.
The Cyber Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency dismissed the case against Tan on Nov. 9 with a "no right to prosecute" decision and did not refer it to prosecutors, police said Wednesday. The defamation charge had been based on allegations of stating false facts. A dismissal is a procedure that closes a case before a decision on the merits when the requirements for prosecution are not met.
Tan made the remarks in June last year at a press conference hosted by an international election monitoring group at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. He said that President Lee had been involved in the killing of a young girl as a teenager and was sent to a juvenile detention center. In response, the civic group Liberty Korea Defense Corps filed a complaint with police in July last year, alleging that Tan had publicized false information.
Police launched an investigation after receiving the complaint. However, authorities reached the "no right to prosecute" decision after considering that Tan is a U.S. citizen and that the remarks were made in the United States, according to sources. Police are still investigating separate remarks Tan made in South Korea.
Tan served as ambassador-at-large for the Office of Global Criminal Justice at the State Department during the first Trump administration. He has repeatedly claimed that election fraud occurred in South Korea.
