The bodyguard who accompanied the late former President Roh Moo-hyun on his hiking was not with Roh, when he jumped off a cliff behind his rural home Saturday morning, police announced Wednesday.
The announcement completely betrays what the bodyguard said earlier right after the incident ― he was unable to catch the former President on the cliff although he was with him.
During the police questioning, the anonymous bodyguard changed his statements several times. At one point, he claimed that he was taking an approaching hiker down the hill and returned to find Roh missing.
Police suspect that the bodyguard lied to avoid being blamed for his lax escorting of the former head of state.
"It is believed that former President Roh fell from the cliff after sending his security guard on an errand to a nearby temple," Lee Woon-wu, commissioner of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
According to the police commissioner, Roh arrived at Owl Rock at 6:14 a.m. with the bodyguard and asked him for a cigarette. Three minutes later, 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, the commissioner said.
A mortuary tablet in honor of the former president's deceased parents is enshrined at the temple.