By Na Jeong-ju
As the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and its implications to global security are making headlines, little attention is being paid to the so-called DDoS scandal, in which a number of ruling camp staffers, including a Cheong Wa Dae official, appear to be deeply involved.
It’s ironic that the prosecution is quickening its investigation into the case, given its usual foot-dragging on politically sensitive crimes.
When all eyes were on Pyongyang, the prosecution summoned the presidential staffer for questioning Thursday on his alleged involvement in the cyber attack on the websites of the National Election Commission and an opposition candidate for the Seoul mayoral race during the Oct. 26 by-elections.
The summons came just one day after police “belatedly” revealed a questionable financial transaction between the staffer and a former secretary to National Assembly Speaker and former Grand National Party (GNP) Chairman Park Hee-tae, on the day of the election.
Park’s secretary, identified as Kim, 30, sent 5 million won ($4,350) to the Cheong Wa Dae staffer’s bank account on Oct. 26, and got 4 million won back one month later just after police launched their probe. Both of them claimed the money transfer had nothing to do with the cyber attack.
Kim reportedly delivered 100 million won ($86,500) to the alleged hackers through a former secretary of GNP lawmaker Choi Gu-sik, who was a key campaigner for Na Kyung-won, the party’s candidate for the Seoul mayoral election.
Choi’s brother-in-law, identified as Kang, was also grilled Thursday over allegations that he had telephone conversations on numerous occasions with Kim and the hackers after the scandal broke out.
The revelations were shocking enough to draw a lot of media coverage, but largely overshadowed by the news from North Korea.
Many SNS users are curious about the timing of the revelations. Even some GNP lawmakers jokingly say Kim Jong-il “rescued” President Lee Myung-bak, whose public approval had plunged in the wake of the scandal as well as a series of corruption cases involving his relatives.
Police had also been under fire for their alleged cover-up of the involvement of the Cheong Wa Dae official and the ruling party staffers in the website attack. They didn’t reveal the suspicious financial deals between the suspects when they announced the interim result of the investigation on Dec. 9.
They said at the time that Choi’s secretary was the mastermind of the hacking and there was no evidence proving the involvement of other GNP staffers.
Later it was revealed that police chief Cho Hyun-oh spoke over the phone twice with Kim Hyo-jae, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, just before the probe results were announced, triggering suspicions of Cheong Wa Dae’s possible tampering with the case.
Kim Jin-pyo, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Unity Party, likened the case to the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1974 and the indictment of dozens of top Nixon’s aides.
Much of the attention is now on whether the prosecution will get to the bottom of the hacking case despite political pressure. Opposition parties, however, are already questioning the fairness of the investigation.
On Wednesday, the GNP, now being led by President Lee’s archrival Park Geun-hye, accepted the opposition’s demand that an independent counsel be designated to look into the website attack “if the ongoing prosecution probe fails to quell all suspicions.”
