SULAIMANI (ESTA) — South Korea has called on the Iraqi government to launch a fair investigation into the death of a high-level director of a Korean company implementing a strategic port project in Basra, the country’s foreign ministry said on Monday.
Park Chul-Ho, director for the South Korean Daewoo E&C Iraq office implementing the construction of the lucrative Fao port, was found dead Friday morning.
His hanging corpse was discovered by a worker in the company compound in the oil-rich province of Basra several kilometers away from the port site.
“The South Korean Embassy in Iraq has requested that the Iraqi authorities conduct a swift and fair investigation,” a foreign ministry official in Seoul said, according Yohnap news agency.
The Iraqi interior ministry formed a committee to investigate Park’s death after multiple official rejected initial findings that the death had been by suicide.
Deputy Speaker of Iraqi Parliament Hassan Karim al-Kaabi subsequently submitted a request to the government to conduct a serious investigation into the circumstances surrounding Park’s death.
Al-Kaabi questioned the timing of Park’s death because it had come after an announcement by the Transport Ministry about the imminent signing of a contract regarding the next phase of the Fao port project, he said in comments to state media.
Hakim al-Zamili, head of the Sadrist Movement, which holds the highest number of seats in Iraq’s parliament, echoed al-Kaabi’s suspicions and demanded that security agencies follow up on the case.
AP cited three Iraqi officials as saying that the committee began work on Saturday.
Mayor of al-Fao district in Basra Walid al-Shaif said the investigation would include surveillance footage retrieved from around the compound, AP reported.
