[Reporter’s notebook] Two years later, the NIS’s fabricated spy case and two upended lives

Posted on : 2016-03-19 20:59 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
NIS agents and prosecutors forged evidence but weren’t punished while their victims suffer deportation and unemployment
Kim Won-ha is moved to a general inpatient room from the emergency room after his Mar. 6 suicide attempt
Kim Won-ha is moved to a general inpatient room from the emergency room after his Mar. 6 suicide attempt

About this time two years ago, there was an incident that turned South Korean society on its head. As you may remember, this was an espionage case against a Seoul civil servant in which investigators fabricated evidence against the accused.

Yoo Woo-sung, a civil servant for the city of Seoul, was charged with espionage related to his multiple trips to the North, but it turned out that the documents that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) submitted to the prosecutors as evidence had been forged.

While Yoo’s lawyer played a major role in bringing the fabrication to light, ironically enough Kim Won-ha – the person who actually fabricated the evidence – played an important role at the very end. It was Kim’s revelation that the evidence had been fabricated and his attempted suicide in a motel that brought the case to wider public attention.

After that, Kim was put in prison to serve a two-year sentence for forging personal documents.

The reason that I am rehashing this incident for you is to inform you that, after Kim was released from prison on Mar. 11 upon completing his sentence, he was deported to China.

Immediately before leaving the country, Kim sent me a message, explaining that he had something to tell me. I interviewed him at the foreigner detention center in Cheongju on Mar. 15.

“Mr. Heo, if I explain everything that happened in this case one more time, do you think it could lead to a parliamentary probe or to an investigation by a special prosecutor? If that were so, I want to bring the truth to light instead of going to China, even if that means I have to spend more time here in the foreigner detention center,” Kim said. His question seemed serious.

I told him the hard truth, that there did not seem to be any chance of that happening. Parliamentary investigations and special prosecutors only happen when there is consensus in the National Assembly between the ruling and opposition parties, and it was unlikely that they would reach a consensus on this.

Kim Won-ha is still indignant that the prosecutors who were in charge of his case - Lee Moon-seong and Lee Si-won - were not prosecuted.

A fact-finding team that investigated charges of evidence fabrication at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office filed charges against the two Lees. But auditors at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office accepted the testimony of the prosecutors that they had been unaware of the NIS’s evidence fabrication.

The prosecutors decided not to press charges against the two Lees without even looking at their mobile phones, and the only disciplinary action taken against them was a one-month suspension from their duties for negligence on the job.

Kim gave me a new 16-page handwritten letter in which he describes in detail when and how he met the NIS agents, what orders they gave him, and what the prosecutors did during this process.

One thing that stands out from these letters is Kim’s claim that the NIS forged not just eight documents, as is generally believed, but 15. These included not merely records of border crossings, but also a letter of confirmation from the South Korean consulate in Shenyang.

“Do the prosecutors really claim that they were in the dark while the NIS was forging all these documents and submitting them to the court? Do South Koreans believe that?” Kim asked.

Kim alleges that the NIS agents who asked him to forge the evidence had told him that the prosecutors had asked them to do it. To be sure, the NIS agents might have been lying to Kim, and there are no witnesses who can attest to the conversation.

Since the forging of the documents has already come to light, I am aware that the testimony that there were not eight but 15 documents that were forged is not exactly a bombshell revelation.

“Even though I did wrong, only god knows why I fabricated the evidence. I persevered during my time in prison by reading the Bible,” Kim said.

I could tell that Kim was greatly disappointed when he saw his hopes disappear. I wonder what Lee Moon-seong (currently a chief prosecutor at the Jeonju District Prosecutors’ Office) and Lee Si-won (currently director of planning at the Institute of Justice) think about all this.

There was one more thing that Kim wished for. He wants to regain his South Korean citizenship. Kim says that he is in fact not a Chinese national of Korean descent, but rather a North Korean refugee, who left North Korea in 1965. Kim’s mother grew up in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province.

Kim explains that, when he left North Korea in 1965, he could not come to South Korea because South Korea and China had yet to establish diplomatic relations. As a result, he says that he remained in China and pretended to be a Chinese national of Korean descent.

In Dec. 2015, Kim applied to the Ministry of Justice for a decision about his South Korean citizenship. Kim claims that he fabricated the evidence because NIS agents had promised that, provided he cooperated with them, they would help him regain his citizenship by recommending him as a patriot.

Kim is concerned that his application for restoration of citizenship will be rejected because his whistle-blowing has created an awkward situation for the South Korean government.

On Mar. 18, Kim was deported to China. Kim says that, as soon as he arrives, he will have to face additional questioning from the Chinese authorities. He might even be prosecuted again in China.

Former Seoul civil servant Yoo Woo-sung may have been found not guilty, but he has been unable to get hired anywhere. Today, he makes a living by doing manual labor on construction sites.

You have to wonder whether this espionage case has made any difference in South Korean society.

By Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporter

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

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