Two senior officials who served in the Roh Moo-hyun government have been found guilty on charges of destroying the 2007 inter-Korean summit transcript.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a guilty verdict issued early this year for Baek Jong-cheon and Cho Myoung-gyon, officials responsible for foreign affairs and defense issues at the presidential office during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Earlier in February, the Seoul High Court sentenced the two men to one year in prison, suspended for two years.

Baek and Cho were indicted without physical detention in November of 2013 on charges of violating the law regarding the management of presidential archives and damaging official electronic records.

Prosecutors accused the two men of destroying the first draft of the 2007 inter-Korean summit transcript to conceal that Roh had made remarks to the effect of surrendering the Yellow Sea’s inter-Korean maritime border, known as the Northern Limit Line or NLL.

Talk of the transcript first emerged after Saenuri Party Rep. Chung Moon-hun said ahead of the 18th presidential election in October 2012 that Roh made such statements about the border.

Initially, courts had found Baek and Cho not guilty in their first two trials, finding that the draft wasn't a presidential record as it hadn't been authorized yet.

However, in December 2020, the Supreme Court overturned the previous rulings and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court, which issued the suspended sentence for the two former officials.