Visitors walk past a military fence covered with ribbons with messages calling for peace and reunification at the Imjingak peace park near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea in Paju on Jan 1, 2021. (JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea's presidential office denounced on Wednesday the repatriation of two fishermen from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 2019 as a potential "crime against humanity" by the previous government, pledging to reveal the truth.

The comments came after Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the DPRK, released photographs of the two men, who were suspected of killing 16 shipmates, being forcibly dragged across the border between the neighbors.

Kang In-sun, spokeswoman for President Yoon Suk-yeol. vowed that Yoon's administration would uncover the truth behind the decision of the repatriation of two fishermen from the DPRK, as the ROK's prosecutors have re-opened an investigation into the case

"If they were forcibly repatriated to the North even when they expressed their will to defect, it's a crime against humanity that violated both international law and the constitution," Kang In-sun, spokeswoman for President Yoon Suk-yeol, told reporters. The DPRK is also referred to as North Korea.

She vowed that Yoon's administration would uncover the truth behind the decision, as the ROK's prosecutors have re-opened an investigation into the case.

At the time, the government of then president Moon Jae-in called the fishermen "dangerous criminals who would threaten people in the ROK's' safety" as they killed colleagues in a shipboard fight over an abusive captain before crossing the sea border.

Moon has not commented on the renewed allegations, and Reuters could not immediately trace contact details.

But opposition lawmaker Yoon Kun-young, who served as Moon's situation room chief, defended the move as being legal and in the national interest.

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"President Yoon, are you saying we should have let the grotesque murderers get away with their crime and protect them with our own people's tax money?" he wrote on Facebook.

Human rights activists have condemned the repatriation, and a UN investigator said the ROK had probably violated the fishermen's rights, by sidestepping an obligation for its justice system to deal with them rather than deporting the men

He was one of eight lawmakers who issued a statement accusing the Yoon government of re-opening the case to undermine political foes.

Human rights activists have condemned the repatriation, and a UN investigator said the ROK had probably violated the men's rights, by sidestepping an obligation for its justice system to deal with them rather than deporting the men.

While their fate has not been confirmed, there was an expectation their rights would be violated when they were turned over to the DPRK authorities, Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN investigator, said in Seoul last month.

"The two men's desperate resistance to being forced back that is so apparent in those photos shows that they understood they were fighting for their lives," Phil Robertson of New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

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"Moon Jae-in and his officials knew that too, and yet still they sent them back."