Yoon Seong-hyun, chief of the Coast Guard's investigation team into the deadly shooting of a South Korean fisheries official in North Korean territorial waters, briefs about the interim investigation result at the Coast Guard headquarters in Incheon, Tuesday. Yonhap

By Yi Whan-woo

The mystery behind the deadly shooting of a South Korean fisheries official in North Korea's territorial waters last week is deepening the political and ideological divide in the South.

The government and the North Korean authorities are apparently at odds over how the official surnamed Lee, 47, was killed after going missing from a fisheries patrol boat, Sept. 21, near the western sea border and floating into the North's territorial waters.

Seoul said he was shot while attempting to defect while Pyongyang argues it was in response to Lee refusing to identify himself and trying to flee.

They also disagree over the whereabouts of Lee's corpse, with the government saying it was burned by the North, which responded that it only set fire to a floating "object" he was holding onto and officers there have no clue where the body is.

This conflicting scenarios has left room for the rival political parties here to accuse each other of being pro-North Korea or having an outdated mindset regarding inter-Korean peace and related incidents.

Among the latter was an apology offered both by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the South Korean people over Lee's death, and the National Assembly's abortive attempt to adopt a resolution to denounce Pyongyang.

Announcing the results of an interim investigation, the Coast Guard said Tuesday that the official was trying to defect to the North. The announcement was based on intelligence received from the military, the analysis of tidal currents on the day of the incident and other circumstantial evidence.

"Based on the investigation so far, we believe that he intended to defect to the North," Yoon Seong-hyun, chief of the investigation team, said during a press briefing.

He added the dead official "knew his way around" the waters off Yeonpyeong Island near the Northern Limit Line ― the de facto border ― where he went missing.