NIS [자료사진]
Prosecutors target Moon government’s security line… It started with a complaint from the National Intelligence Service
On the 27th, former national security adviser Seo Hoon and other top officials on the security line during the Moon Jae-in administration held a press conference side by side. This is to completely refute the claim that a public official from the fishing guide ship who died in a North Korean attack in the West Sea in 2020 was driven to North Korea.
Prosecutors have been investigating the case since last July. Following the arrest of former Defense Minister Seo Wook and former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee, the investigation has been aimed at the security chiefs of Moon Jae’s government in turn.
The initiation of the investigation was an indictment against the unusual former directors of the National Intelligence Service. After appointing Cho Sang-joon, head of the Planning and Coordination Office, Special Tongjin, who is said to have a fraternal relationship with President Yoon Seok-yeol, the NIS conducted extensive inspections of his employees. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Choi Hyuk, who is also considered a special case, joined the National Intelligence Service on dispatch.
At the time of the accusation, the NIS said, “As a result of our own investigation, we have filed a complaint with the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office against former Director Park Ji-won and others on charges of unauthorized deletion of intelligence reports. ” “We have confirmed that the document was deleted in the process of reviewing important reports,” he said.
‘Retired’ at a first class meeting?
Details of former Director Park’s crimes, identified by the National Intelligence Service, were not known. However, MBC recently obtained and confirmed the contents of the complaint from the National Intelligence Service. Unexpected points were noticed everywhere.
The NIS said that former Director Park Ji-won held a political service meeting at the director’s office between 9:30 and 10:00 am on September 23, a day after receiving the information about the shooting of a public official, with the participation of deputy ministers and top executives. At this meeting, he wrote, “I gave an order to immediately delete information and reports related to the assassination of a public official in the West Sea registered in the NIS system.”
It was noted that Noh Eun-chae, head of the National Intelligence Service Secretariat, Kim Seon-hee, 3rd deputy head, and Lee Seok-su, head of the main office, were present at the meeting. However, Lee Seok-soo, head of the keynote department, retired in early August, about a month before the meeting. You listed the wrong person in the key meeting where there was a removal order. When Lee Seok-soo, the former head of the keynote department, heard about this in a call with MBC, he reacted absurdly, saying, “It’s too lax like a letter of complaint from the main intelligence agency.”
The NIS, not the NIS ‘jang’, is the subject of the charge… even the form is loose.
Not only this. In the letter of complaint, the subject of this complaint was written as “National Intelligence Service”. When a crime relating to the position of a civil servant or former public officer is discovered, the head of each administrative department is prosecuted in accordance with the usual directives and guidelines. This is because central administrative agencies belonging to the state do not have legal personality. In this case, the “Director of the National Intelligence Service”, not the “National Intelligence Service”, should be the subject of the charge.
A plurality of lawyers explained that “legally, there is no problem with the effectiveness of the accusation itself”, but “it is unusual for an accusation under the name of an organization other than the head of an organization”. At the time of the accusation, the NIS made it clear that “the new manager has a will to find out the truth about the incident, and it stems from the belief that the distortion of information must be corrected.” For such an emphasis, there were many flaws in the content and form of the complaint.
Examining the announcement of the joint Audit and Inspection Board… “It was deleted before the deletion order”?
The prosecution provided the defense with the deletion of some of the content of the indictment. The complaint provided at this time did not specify the exact time of deletion of the information identified by the National Intelligence Service.
However, other agencies, the Audit and Inspection Board, have revealed the timing of the removal. The Audit and Inspection Board, which carried out extensive audits of the National Intelligence Service, the Coast Guard, and the Ministry of National Defence, said that intelligence was simultaneously being deleted at 3 a.m. by the Ministry of Defense National and the National Intelligence Service. It is said that only the information about the attack on the West Sea by different agencies was selected and deleted at the same time at dawn. Clearly, there was clear instruction from the ‘higher up’, and the interim results were announced.
However, there is something strange about it. This is because the NIS said in the complaint that former Director Park ordered the removal at a meeting of the NIS political office at 9:30am. In chronological order, it is as follows:
September 23, 2020
1 am: Blue House Heads of Security Meeting – Decision to cover up (result of Audit and Inspection Board audit)
3 am: Spy documents at the time deleted by the Ministry of National Defense and the National Intelligence Service (audit by the Scrutiny and Inspection Board)
9:30 am: Director Park Ji-won ordered the removal of then NIS director (letter of indictment from former NIS director Park)
Combining the announcements made by the Audit and Inspection Board and the National Intelligence Service, we conclude that the data was deleted prior to the deletion order.
The ‘Blue House Security Office’ identified behind the … Will the mystery be solved?
The prosecution and the Board of Audit and Inspection believe that the Office of Security of the Blue House is behind the deletion. These suspicions were also included in the search and seizure warrant for Park, which was confirmed by MBC. Prosecutors have listed five people as accomplices in the warrant: former Director Park, National Security Bureau Director Suh Hoon, National Security Bureau First Deputy Director Suh Joo-seok, former Chief of Staff Noh Eun-chae, and former Third Deputy Director the Office of National Security. the National Intelligence Service Kim Seon-hee.
Among the five people investigated so far, Kim Seon-hee, former 3rd deputy general manager, and Noh Eun-chae, former general manager, have been investigated. In particular, it was noted that Noh Eun-chae, a former chief of staff, provided the ‘removal instruction’ of former director Park Ji-won. Former Chief of Staff Roh was found to have stated, “The Ministry of National Defense has not come to a conclusion on the intelligence yet, so I have given an instruction to be cautious about security.”
The same is true of other accomplices identified by the prosecution. In a press conference held at the National Assembly on the 27th, former security chief Seo Hoon also said, “There was no discussion on data deletion itself, and the relationship between the head of the security office and a member of r Council of State is a relationship. of giving and receiving instructions.” Former president Park Ji-won also pointed out, “Why are the times of the National Intelligence Service and the Audit Office different?”
Prosecutors said only that “the accused did not speak through the criminal justice process.” It means we don’t care because only the comments contained in the prosecution newspaper report are meaningful. It seems that the summons to former Director Park and others is not far away. The investigation is nearing a climax as to whether the prosecution will receive a meaningful statement in the report and reveal instructions and deletion allegations from the White House Security Office.
