hankyoreh

The employees of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) that were involved in forging evidence in the case of a Seoul public servant who was falsely accused of being a spy were all found guilty on Oct. 28. This is a troubling case that challenges the very existence of the NIS, since it shows the agency that is supposed to be catching spies instead fabricating its own.

Only a few years have passed since the troubling past of the agency came to light, revealing the frequency with which spies were framed. At the time, an effort was made to atone for these mistakes, but now it has happened again.

The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) turned into the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP), which finally became the National Intelligence Service (NIS), but one can’t help but wonder whether the flawed nature of this agency is incapable of changing.

It is possible that the NIS made this rash move in the interest of protecting itself. After all, the organization found itself in a desperate position last year because of the online comment scandal, related to the 2012 presidential election.

Yoo Woo-sung, a former Seoul public servant who had been indicted on plausible charges of espionage, was found not guilty by a lower court. At this point, the NIS likely did everything in its power to overturn the court’s decision.

But the NIS‘s decision to go outside the law and fabricate evidence would come back to haunt it. Instead of acknowledging its mistake, the NIS tried to cover it up with another one, which only made matters worse.

In March, when the NIS was facing sharp criticism after the fabrication of evidence came to light, it launched an investigation into someone surnamed Hong, supposedly a spy sent directly from North Korea. But last month, Hong was also cleared of charges. It seems as though this investigation fabricated evidence to fit the NIS’s objectives.

At this point, it is clear that the NIS has lost all of its credibility. It cannot be trusted on other espionage cases, and suspicions are even being raised that the NIS has been taking advantage of North Korean refugees like Yoo and Hong to boost its number of espionage investigations. Indeed, when one looks into refugees who have been charged with espionage, there are some cases when there was no clear evidence or when the defendant was too naive to be a spy.

The NIS may protest that it has done nothing of the sort, but it has to admit that it has brought these suspicions upon itself. While none of the “higher ups” at the NIS may have been prosecuted in connection with the fake evidence, there is not a single South Korean who thinks that this was just some middle managers going rogue.

The organization needs to spend some time seriously reflecting on the stinking criticism given by the court, which noted that the case had “damaged the trust and disappointed the expectations of the people, who have given the NIS extensive authority and responsibility.”

If the NIS does not genuinely repent of its actions and correct its practice of carrying out investigations that bend or break the law, and if it carries out another preposterous act like this one, it will give ammunition to the argument that the NIS should be stripped of its authority to investigate alleged communist activities.

While the prosecutors avoided criminal responsibility in regard to the fabricated evidence, they need to stop relying on the NIS when dealing with espionage cases and take a more active role in monitoring the agency‘s behavior.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]