Col. Cho Says He Acted to Stop Insurrection After Illegal Order to Drag Out Lawmakers

The second comprehensive special prosecutor team, led by Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young and investigating allegations left unresolved after the three earlier special prosecutor probes into insurrection, first lady Kim Keon Hee and the Marine Corps death case, has reversed the insurrection special prosecutor's decision not to indict and opened a probe into Col. Cho Seong-hyeon, former commander of the 1st Security Group under the Capital Defense Command. Amid that investigation, Cho's side has submitted a written opinion stating that he acted to stop the insurrection after recognizing the unlawfulness of an order to drag out National Assembly members.

According to reporting compiled Tuesday, Cho's side submitted the written opinion to the special prosecutor team on Monday, along with a recording of a 7-minute, 44-second phone call from Jan. 16 with Maj. Yun Deok-gyu — who served as commander of the 2nd Area Unit of the 2nd Special Mission Battalion under the 1st Security Group during the martial law declaration — and denied the charges.

Unlike the insurrection special prosecutor's earlier decision not to indict, the special prosecutor team has booked Cho on charges of performing an important role in insurrection, alleging his involvement in the Dec. 3, 2024, emergency martial law declaration. Cho is also known to have ordered what became known as the "Sogang Bridge retreat," instructing subordinate units not to cross Sogang Bridge. The Ministry of National Defense last year commended Cho and others for upholding constitutional values in connection with that order.

The special prosecutor team suspects that during the Dec. 3, 2024, emergency martial law declaration, Cho — in his capacity as commander of the Capital Defense Command's 1st Security Group — dispatched subordinate units to the National Assembly, assigned them the mission of entering and controlling the Assembly grounds, and relayed an order from then-Capital Defense Command chief Lee Jin-woo to "drag out the Assembly members."

The team said it has secured details of the orders Cho gave to his subordinates as well as memos written at the time, and said it has built out the specifics of the charges through two rounds of suspect questioning of Cho. The team is particularly reported to have doubts about whether the "Sogang Bridge retreat" order was ever actually given.

In response, Cho's side pushed back in the written opinion against the special prosecutor team's view that no such retreat order was issued. Cho "clearly conveyed the intent of the retreat order by telling Maj. Yun to 'go back up' during the first round of suspect questioning," the opinion said. "The claim that the order to retreat — that is, 'do not cross Sogang Bridge' — was never given is not true," it added.

The opinion went on to say: "In light of the act of immediately ordering the Sogang Bridge retreat at the moment — around 1:20 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024 — when he learned that the 2nd Special Mission Battalion was moving contrary to his intent, after having halted the 2nd Area Unit at the northern end of Sogang Bridge, all actions taken after the point at which he recognized the unlawful situation must be assessed not as participation in insurrection but as acts of resistance."

The special prosecutor team suspects that the "Suhoshin TF," formed in February 2024, was a shadow organization that produced no official documents and bypassed the formal internal reporting chain, and that it prepared or planned for the deployment of troops in preparation for martial law. The team believes Cho was involved in the TF.

Cho's side maintains that the Suhoshin TF was understood to be an integrated counter-terrorism operational framework established at the direction of then-commander Lee to respond to simultaneous terrorist threats in Seoul, and that Cho did not recognize it as having been created for emergency martial law. Cho's side continues to insist the TF was not a unit created for emergency martial law.

The recording of Cho's call with Maj. Yun, submitted as part of the defense, contains a statement by Yun about the Suhoshin TF: "(Col. Cho) simply devoted himself wholeheartedly to establishing this unit as a genuine counter-terrorism force as its mission was being reorganized — there was even a risk at the time that the unit might be disbanded, and he was working to prevent that."

In the written opinion, Cho denied the charges by emphasizing four points: the absence of any incidental awareness of intent to undermine the constitutional order; his substantive defiance and acts of resistance after recognizing the unlawful order; the absence of any functional contribution to the execution of insurrection; and considerations of what conduct could reasonably have been expected of him.

Cho said, "The first moment I recognized the order as unlawful was around 12:43 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024, when I received a direct order from the commander to 'drag out the Assembly members.' All prior actions were taken under a reasonable understanding that they constituted lawful counter-terrorism and security duties."

He added that a series of actions constituted acts of resistance against the insurrection: recommending a review around 12:52 a.m., immediately after first recognizing the unlawful order; deliberately withholding specific execution orders as a form of passive resistance; ordering the 2nd Area Unit to halt at the northern end of Sogang Bridge and turn back; and persuading the commander to obtain approval for a full withdrawal.

Cho's side also cited the ruling against former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who received a 15-year prison sentence on appeal for participating in the insurrection. It argued: "There was no arrest or detention of Assembly members, nor any interference with a general assembly of lawmakers, and the 2nd Area Unit did not enter the National Assembly grounds. The finding that he 'contributed to individual acts with the intent to participate in the overall insurrection as a member of the insurrectionist group' cannot be sustained."

Cho's side also highlighted the insurrection special prosecutor's decision not to indict him, which cited the Sogang Bridge retreat. "The insurrection special prosecutor found that he responded passively to the unconstitutional order before ultimately refusing it, that he independently eliminated the unlawful situation by ordering troops not to cross Sogang Bridge, and that he contributed to the early termination of the unconstitutional emergency martial law," the opinion said, adding that "no new evidence capable of proving the charges has been found."