hankyoreh

former commissioner of Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency

By Lee Kyung-mi, staff reporter

“You haven’t come up with a single post as evidence. You could have given us a screenshot. You haven’t been able to do that, so instead you drum things up. . . .”

Then-candidate Park Geun-hye delivered these words during a televised debate on Dec. 16, 2012, just three days before the presidential election. They were directed at her opponent, Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in, who alleged that a National Intelligence Service (NIS) agent had been systematically and illegally posting online messages with political content.

Internet posts appear on the internet. They don’t end up stored in a person’s “My Documents” folder. Park argued that a screenshot could have been provided as evidence. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) examined the harddrive of the notebook computer belonging to Kim Ha-young - the NIS agent in question. The team that did the analysis said it found records of 40 IDs, which appeared to be for internet use, and around 300,000 online logins. It made sense that the investigation would be taken from there to the web.

The police didn’t investigate online. Right after the TV debate, they put out a press release, titled “Interim Investigation Findings on Alleged Illegal Election Campaigning by NIS Agent.” It stated that digital evidence analysis had found no online posts expressing support for Park or criticizing Moon. How did the voters take this announcement? Most of them assumed, quite reasonably, that the agent had been exonerated.

The SMPA’s interim announcement reflected only the analysis team’s harddrive examination. It was released at 11 pm, after the debate was over. Former SMPA chief Kim Yong-pan himself admitted ordering the issuing of a press release stating that no evidence had been found, even after he received a report that clues for an online investigation had been located.

The case itself is simple. The problem is the decision to limit the search for posts to the suspect’s computer and then claiming to have “investigated the matter.” The idea of looking for internet posts on a harddrive is comical. But then the police went before the people, most of whom don’t know much about the significance of digital evidence analysis or police investigation methods, and made it out as though the investigation was over and Kim Ha-young had been cleared.

A comical approach, perhaps, but one that a court recently accepted when it found Kim Yong-pan not guilty on Feb. 6. Referring to the analysis team’s decision to limit the scope of the investigation by omitting the clues for an online investigation that had been found on the computer - the IDs and site log - the court decided that the investigators had been “unaware of any connection between the clues found on the notebook and the charges of election interference.”

If we accept this characterization, then the most logical thing for the police to have done was either make no announcement at all, or be clear exactly what they meant: “We found IDs and a site log on the notebook, but we will need to investigate online to see if there were any online posts.”

Why did the police decide to come out with this surprise - and false - announcement, just after the presidential candidates debate had ended? That’s the key question. It’s what needs to be answered if we are to determine whether Kim had any intention of influencing the election outcome himself. The court’s only position on this was to express “dismay about the content and timing” of the announcement, and to say the police “could have avoided unnecessary misunderstandings, for example by clearly highlighting issues related to the scope of analysis and stating that there was a possibility for the investigation to be expanded.” In essence, it skated over the most important part of the case. The key question was why the police failed to mention the investigation scope or issues, and seemingly ruled out the possibility of it being expanded. The court’s reply was, “Yes, how dismaying.” No further explanation on this point can be found anywhere in the 108-page ruling.

Meanwhile, the court insisted that it couldn’t trust the account of Kwon Eun-hee, the chief of investigation at Seoul’s Suseo Police Department at the time. Kwon was someone standing on the outside of the SMPA. She wasn’t involved directly, so she has no way of knowing what transpired there. She has no connection to the key issue in the prosecutor’s indictment, namely the decision to limit the scope of the investigation. In finding Kim Yong-pan not guilty, the court argued that Kwon’s version of events wasn’t credible because it differed from the accounts of 17 police officers on such incidental issues as the postponement of a warrant request and a delay in the return of evidence. But most of the 17 police officers had been questioned by prosecutors as suspects. It makes sense that they would be working together with Kim.

Now that Kim has been acquitted, it looks as though no one will be taking any responsibility for the police’s decision to release false investigation findings just before the presidential election. The question of why they chose to release those findings in the middle of the night has also gone unanswered. The prosecutors say they are strongly considering an appeal, so we may just have to wait and see how that process unfolds.

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