Spy agency says 1987 bombing of Korean Air jet carried out by N. Korea

Posted on : 2006-08-01 19:34 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

South Korea's state spy agency said Tuesday that a 1987 bombing of a Korean Air jet, which killed all 115 passengers and crew members on board, was committed by North Korean agents, dismissing claims by the victims' bereaved families that the crime may have been fabricated.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS), however, said the administration of former President Chun Doo-hwan may have tried to use the incident for political gain in the presidential election of that year.

"(The agency) has confirmed the (past) government tried to use the incident to foster a favorable atmosphere in the presidential election," the agency's fact-finding committee to look into its own past wrongdoings said in a report.

The report, however, comes only as an interim result as the the intelligence service has yet to interview a key figure involved in the case -- Kim Hyun-hui, one of two North Korean agents who allegedly planted time bombs on the Korean Air flight.

The former North Korean agent was brought to the country in late 1987 to face prosecution here.

She has since been pardoned and reportedly married a South Korean intelligence officer who questioned her.

The bereaved families of the 1987 bombing victims and civic activists have long claimed that the former military government of Chun Doo-hwan may have planned, or even executed, the bombing to foster a favorable atmosphere for Chun's ruling party candidate in the presidential election later in the year.

Chun rose to power in a 1979 military coup, and has been charged with various crimes, including a military crackdown on a 1980 democratic uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju, which left some 200 people dead and more than 1,800 others injured.

The probes by the intelligence service have also shown that the past governments of Chun and his successor Roh Tae-woo had often fabricated intelligence cases, involving North Korean spies, to silence dissidents.

The NIS report said the Chun Doo-hwan government again tried to use the KAL bombing incident to help redirect public attention from the growing dissident movement, saying there were "diplomatic efforts" to bring Kim Hyun-hui to the country only one day before the 1987 presidential election.

But it said there was no evidence pointing to the accusation that the former government had anything to do with the bombing itself.

An association of the bombing victims' families dismissed the report not only as meaningless but flawed.

"The interim report, based only on the speculation of the committee, which didn't even investigate the mastermind of the case, Kim Hyun-hui, is meaningless," the organization said in a statement.

"(Committee investigators) were unable to perform a proper investigation because the NIS and the committee have no intention of revealing the truth," the statement said.

Tuesday's report came after an almost two-year investigation into the agency's alleged past wrongdoings, including a 1992 case in which the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), predecessor of the NIS, claimed to have discovered some 400 people, including North Korean spies, working to establish a South Korean branch of the North's Workers' Party.

The report said the KCIA may have tried to exaggerate the incident, but said the discovery of three key spies, which launched the case, was found to be authentic.

It said the former ingelligence office had "enough evidence to conclude" that the three key figures in the case were North Korean spies, but said there was no evidence to believe the three were working together or that they had organized or were trying to organize a branch office of the North's communist party here.

Meanwhile, the intelligence service said it has found what is believed to be the wreckage of the Korean Air flight in waters some 300 kilometers southeast of Myanmar.

Research to probe, and possibly to salvage, the underwater object are to begin in October when the area's monsoon season ends, the NIS said.

Seoul, Aug. 1 (Yonhap)

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