Bang Jeong-hwan, a current Army Brigadier General and Director of Innovation Planning at the Ministry of National Defense, was named as the deputy head of the 'Investigation Team 2' led by former Intelligence Commander Noh Sang-won.
According to SBS's investigation, Bang testified to the police that on the afternoon of the day martial law was declared, December 3, he received a call from former Minister Kim Yong-hyun via the civilian SNS messenger app 'Signal.'
In this call, he was instructed by former Minister Kim to "be at the Intelligence Command with Brigade Commander Gu Sam-hoe," and when Bang asked for the reason, former Minister Kim replied, "You'll know when you get there, it's not a difficult task."
Bang then called Brigade Commander Gu, who told him to "come to Sangnok Station in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province immediately," and the police confirmed that Bang went to Sangnok Station and met former Commander Noh Sang-won at a hamburger restaurant.
At this meeting, former Commander Noh showed Bang the list of the joint investigation team without further explanation and said, "You will be the deputy head of Investigation Team 2," and when Bang asked about his specific role, he was told, "You will know when the orders come down," according to Bang's testimony to the police.
Bang worked with former Commander Noh Sang-won in the policy department under the secretary's office of the Army Chief of Staff when former Minister Kim Yong-hyun was the secretary of the Army Chief of Staff around 2007.
[Former Intelligence Commander Noh Sang-won: "When General Kim Yong-hyun was the secretary of the Army Chief of Staff 20 years ago, I worked in the policy department under him."]
A Ministry of National Defense source explained, "Bang was assigned to future planning tasks, so he had relatively more time, and he had a working relationship with former Commander Noh, which is why former Minister Kim likely pointed to Bang."
As suspicions have emerged that former Minister Kim involved Bang, a current director-level official at the Ministry of National Defense, in martial law, additional investigations seem inevitable to determine if other high-ranking officials at the Ministry of National Defense received instructions related to martial law from former Minister Kim or played roles in preparing and executing martial law.
It is truly surprising that such nonsensical orders were followed in the first place.
In any case, it has been revealed that these individuals do not care about the safety or order of the country and only think about their own interests.
We can no longer entrust our safety to them.
To calm the current chaos under the leadership of the opposition party, both the special prosecutor and impeachment must proceed smoothly.