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National Intelligence Service director Nam Jae-joon bows in apology after a press conference at the NIS offices in Seoul’s Naegok neighborhood

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

President Park Geun-hye indicated that she does not plan to hold National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Nam Jae-joon accountable for the falsification of evidence in the Yoo Woo-sung espionage trial.

After pledging allegiance to the flag

Her remarks at a Blue House cabinet meeting, the first part of which was open to reporters, on Apr. 15 - just 20 hours after prosecutors announced findings from their investigation of the case - mean that Nam received what amounts to an official presidential exoneration.

Speaking at the meeting, Park said, “The prosecutors’ investigation findings were announced yesterday, and I find it very dismaying that the public was made to worry by some flaws that were unfortunately identified in terms of the NIS’s mistaken practices and a lack of thoroughness in its management system.”

She went on to say that the NIS “must make rigorous efforts at a fresh start so that things like that do not happen again.”

“If anything else happens to lose the trust of the public, [the NIS] will be held sternly to account,” she warned.

Park’s apology to the public, which she made after accepting the resignation of NIS deputy director Suh Cheon-ho the previous day, made it clear that no one else would be held accountable in the case.

Park also left Nam in charge of the “fresh start” - yet another example of demanding steps to reform the NIS internally from the same director whose controversial actions many have called a threat to the judicial system. The latest response was similar to the one made last year when allegations of systematic NIS interference in the 2012 presidential election had many demanding reforms to the agency.

Apr. 16. (pool photo)

While Park was presiding over the meeting, Nam was calling reporters to a press conference at the NIS offices in Seoul’s Naegok neighborhood to make his own apology to the public. Nam left the press conference after reading a statement of less than two minutes and without taking any questions.

“I humbly bow my head in apology for the trouble that these allegations of documentary evidence falsification have caused the public,” Nam said at the press conference.

“As director, I feel a grave sense of responsibility for the unacceptable things that have happened, which have resulted in some of our staff members being indicted for evidence falsification,” he continued. “At this critical moment, I plead to the public for the National Intelligence Service to be given the opportunity to make a fresh start with a new foundation.”

As concrete steps, Nam mentioned “forming a task force to reform outdated investigation practices and procedures” and “developing intensive reform measures.”

On the same day, Minister of Justice Hwang Kyo-ahn delivered his own apology at the National Assembly at the request of Justice Party lawmaker Seo Gi-ho.

“I find it extremely dismaying that the prosecutors failed to demonstrate thoroughness in their examination of evidentiary capabilities and ultimately submitted false evidence,” he said.

The fact that the Blue House, NIS, and prosecutors all issued apologies to the public on the same day indicates a concerted attempt to put the fire out.

But the repeated exonerations of Nam might come back to haunt Park. As the figure appearing front and center in the political backlash following major governance issues in 2013 and 2014, he appears likely to continue being a magnet for controversy. And with a long list of issues in the National Assembly that require bipartisan resolutions, it could be a stumbling block for Park to have an opposition target like him remain in place.

In addition to the scandal over evidence falsification in the high-profile espionage trial of Yoo, a former Seoul Metropolitan Government employee and North Korean refugee, Nam is also being dogged by charges of responsibility for the NIS‘s release of sealed inter-Korean summit transcripts - and, more recently, for endangering a refugee’s family by leaking information about him to the press to draw heat away from the agency.

“It’s up to the President to decide when he should be reprimanded,” said a second-term lawmaker with the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP), on condition of anonymity. “But Nam Jae-joon lost a lot of trust [in the National Assembly] last year with a lot of different inappropriate actions.”

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