By Lee Kyung-min
Two days after the ferry Sewol sank off Jindo, South Jeolla Province, on April 16, a 26-year-old woman, Hong Ga-hye, claimed she was a "civilian rescue diver" and held an interview with the cable news channel MBN.
During the interview, which was broadcast live, she alleged that the Korea Coast Guard was not working properly to save the passengers and was uncooperative with civilian divers who had voluntarily rushed to the island to help rescue efforts.
She also claimed that many passengers were still alive inside the sunken ferry, saying that she had heard that from the other divers.
"The Coast Guard is telling civilian divers to just watch or go back home. Civilian divers need proper diving equipment to join in rescue operations, but it is refusing to provide assistance," she charged.
The interview of Hong Ga-hye prompted a wave of criticism of the government and the Coast Guard, and made the families of the victims furious. The government's task force subsequently released a statement saying the allegations raised by Hong were not true.
Soon after, it turned out that she was not in fact a diver, and did not even have any diving experience. MBN publicly apologized for the confusion caused by this interview.
Malicious reports portraying her as a "pathological liar" then followed. One entertainment news outlet reported that she once lied to her friends that she was a cousin of Hwa-young, of popular girl band Tiara, and that she had dated a famous baseball player.
She quickly became the nation's "No. 1 liar" and was indicted a week after the ferry disaster on charges of defaming the Korea Coast Guard with false allegations.
She was soon forgotten by the media, but paid a high price for the original interview with MBN.
On Jan. 9, Hong was found not guilty of defamation against the Korea Coast Guard at Mokpo District Court.
Hong told The Korea Times that she was a "victim of a witch-hunt."
"I don't want this interview to be filled with lies or unfounded facts. Nor do I want it to be written absolutely in my defense. I just want people to know that I did not lie as people think I did," she said.
"I was unfairly arrested after I was targeted to an excessive degree by the media and tons of netizens that chose me as a person who spreads unfounded facts in the media and on social networking sites. I feel what happened to me was inappropriate and unfair."
Indeed, she was not a diver, but introduced herself as a diver to hold an interview with MBN. That was a lie. However, all the media reports about her past lies were later found to be false.
She has never told anybody she was a cousin of the Tiara member and she did in fact date a baseball player.
She was detained on April 20 at Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency two days after the interview with MBN. After a three-month detention, including 20 days spent in an isolation cell, in prison in Mokpo, she was released on bail on July 31.
She said she held the interview with MBN because she wanted to help the rescue efforts.
According to her lawyer, Yang Hong-seok, Hong only passed on what she had previously heard, adding that she had a reason to believe all of it was true.
"So far, according to our witnesses and their testimonies, Hong did not make up the story. She just repeated what she had heard. Some of our witnesses include a man surnamed Hwang, who managed the civilian divers rescue efforts at the time, and he testified that such sentiments were shared by everyone there," Yang said.
Yang said this case is all about the government cracking down on a civilian to the point of "despotism."
"The court should acquit Hong if it deems her allegations are true. Even if they are not found out to be true, she should not be punished for criticizing the government. If the court pushes ahead with such punishment, the health of the society would further deteriorate," he added.
"She is of a particular personality. But, some media reports about her being attention-starved are not true," Yang said.
After Friday's ruling, Hong plans to file a defamation suit against reporters who wrote false stories about her.