hankyoreh

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and former President Lee Myung-bak. (Hankyoreh Archive)

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon filed a complaint against Lee Myung-bak on Sept. 19 accusing the former president of defamation, political interference and abuse of power in violation of the National Intelligence Service Act, and obstruction of official duties. With his complaint, Park requested an investigation of Lee as the figure behind political interference by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) as confirmed by the NIS Reform Committee task force charged with “eradicating deep-rooted vices.”

“The ‘Park Won-soon suppression documents’ and their execution constituted suppression not only of me and my family, but of young unemployed people, irregular workers, Seoul City government officials, and the citizens of Seoul,” Park declared while attending a meeting of the Minjoo Party of Korea’s “entrenched vice eradication committee” that morning at the National Assembly.

“This abuse of power in a way that damages the foundation of democracy is a deep-rooted vice that must come to an end, not for the sake of the past but for the future,” he said.

That afternoon, Park’s legal team filed complaints with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office against 11 people, including Lee and former NIS chief Won Sei-hoon. Also named were a number of staffers working for the NIS during Won’s tenure, including Second Vice Director Min Byeong-hwan, Third Vice Director Lee Jong-myeong, National Interest Strategy Office chief Shin Seung-gyun, Psychological Warfare Division head Min Byeong-ju, team leader Chu Myeong-ho, and two team members surnamed Ham and Cho.

Park’s complaint against Lee on Sept. 19 has many watching to see whether prosecutors move to investigate. If Lee is discovered to have received a personal report on the document, he could find himself being investigated as a co-defendant in the NIS’s illegal political interference.

The evidence cited by Park includes documents presented on Sept. 11 when the NIS Reform Committee was asked to investigate the agency’s past political interference, including two titled “Current Conditions with the Mayor of Seoul’s Left-Wing Governance Approach and Response Measures” and “Spreading Falsehoods about the Left’s Tuition Claims.” In them, the NIS characterized Park as “pro-North Korea” and suggested using a Board of Audit and Inspection audit or ruling party metropolitan council members and right-wing groups to suppress him and his supporters.

The prosecutors looked into the documents once before in 2013 when they were investigating the NIS’s political interference. After the documents were first revealed in a Hankyoreh report, the then-opposition Minjoo Party filed a complaint against Won and nine current and former NIS staffers accusing them of violating the NIS Act’s ban on political involvement. But the prosecutors failed to make headway with the case, announcing only that they planned to continue investigating after the NIS claimed the documents “differed from those internally drafted” and an examination of the documents’ format proved inconclusive as to their authenticity.

The head of the special investigation team for the case that year – the first year of the Park Geun-hye administration – was current Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office chief Yoon Seok-yeol, who found himself demoted at the time for questionable reasons. From the prosecutors’ standpoint, it’s a grudge match in which they are facing off not against Won, but against former President Lee himself. Park’s latest complaint and accusation pits them against an investigation target from a higher weight class.

The circumstances of the investigation are also much different from 2013. This time, the NIS’s responsibility for drafting the documents has been confirmed through the NIS Reform Committee’s investigation – and it has also emerged that they were reported to the Blue House. If Lee was reported to on the documents, it would provide grounds for a full-scale investigation by prosecutors. Sources in and around the prosecutors suggested Lee may be viewed as an accomplice who aided the NIS’s illegal political interference.

“At the time of the investigation in 2013, the prosecutors’ reasoning was that they were having trouble proving [the documents’] authenticity because the NIS wasn’t cooperating. Now there appears to be no problem in reinvestigating the case,” a senior official with the prosecutors said.

“If the NIS did report to the president on illegal actions it was involved in, then the president is an accomplice who allowed [the NIS] to engage in illegal actions outside the scope of its duties,” the official added.

Other legal experts are suggesting the prosecutors may have difficulties pursuing a full-scale investigation, as it would be difficult to prove the NIS documents were delivered to Lee.

“The possibility of there being any physical evidence that the President received a personal report are slim,” said an official at one Seoul-area prosecutors’ office.

“As far as any ‘testimony’ we might expect goes, the likelihood that Blue House senior secretaries and working-level staffers at the time will keep their mouths shut is high,” the official added.

By Hong Seock-jae, staff reporter

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