Morse Tan speaks to a crowd gathered outside the handball arena in Seoul’s Olympic Park on June 24, 2026. (Yonhap)
Korean American conspiracy theorist Morse Tan has been indicted by Korean prosecutors on charges of spreading false information about President Lee Jae Myung.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday said it charged Tan on July 16 on charges of defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act and the Criminal Act. The office said that Tan had not been placed in pre-trial detention. Tan, a former professor at Liberty University and once an ambassador-at-large for the US State Department, is accused of making false statements in June 2025 about the president at a press conference of the self-styled International Election Monitoring Team in Washington, to the effect that Lee as a teen served time at a juvenile detention center for his involvement in a violent crime. Such comments triggered a criminal investigation into Tan.A proponent of conspiracy theories on election fraud, Tan entered Korea on May 28 ahead of the June 3 local elections and held talks with Hwang Kyo-ahn, the leader of the Freedom and Innovation party, and populist pastor Jun Kwang-hoon. Both Hwang and Jun have consistently espoused that Korea’s elections are rigged.Upon Tan’s arrival in Korea, police requested his appearance for questioning but applied for an exit ban for him from the Ministry of Justice after he failed to comply. He filed a motion to suspend the ban after it was granted.The court rejected Tan’s motion, however, finding that “suspending the effectuation of the order could seriously impact public welfare” despite “acknowledging the urgent need to prevent irreparable harm to the petitioner resulting from the [travel ban] order.”Even then, Tan refused to cooperate with the investigation, instead attending a June 24 protest at Olympic Park in Seoul, where a crowd had gathered to prevent ballots from being transported out of a counting center. There, he called on Koreans to demand that the president resign as he “should be held accountable” for fraud in the local elections and urged them to impeach Lee if he did not voluntarily step down.Tan finally answered the police summons on June 25, the day after the protest, and underwent closed-door questioning. Investigators said they substantiated the charges against him and referred the case to prosecutors on July 1. The indictment against him came on July 16.By Lim Cheol-hwi, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
