Seoul, July 15 South Korean Police have opened an investigation into a Korean-American professor for possible defamation charges after he allegedly made damaging comments about country's President Lee Jae Myung with false information, officials said Tuesday.
The investigation against Morse Tan, dean of Liberty University School of Law, came after a conservative civic group had filed a complaint with the police, accusing Tan of defaming Lee by spreading false information about him.
In June, Tan said during an event in Washington that Lee had been involved in the gang rape and murder of a girl during his youth, and that he was sent to a juvenile detention center and unable to finish middle and high school, Yonhap news agency reported.
The civic group said these claims are unfounded.
Tan, former US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice under the first Donald Trump administration, is known for promoting conspiracy theories about election fraud in South Korea.
According to the civic group that filed the complaint, Tan also claimed that the June 3 snap election won by Lee was rigged.
Tan has also made comments in support of former President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law imposition, which eventually removed him from office in April.
Tan, who's visiting Seoul this week, was originally set to deliver a special lecture at Seoul National University (SNU) on Tuesday afternoon, in a session hosted by a far-right group consisting of conservative Christian university students.
But the SNU decided to not allow Tan's speech to take place on the campus. The students' group changed the venue to the front side of the SNU main gate, where Tan gave another speech about defending Yoon's martial law.
Another students' group opposing Tan's visit also staged a protest denouncing the professor for undermining South Korea's democratic order and damaging the president's reputation.
The group accused Tan of exploiting the South Korea-US alliance for far-right political purposes.
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