US Espionage Case Was Fabricated
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
A spy case here in 2006 was purposely planned under the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration to create damage and discord between South Korea and the United States, a former U.S. official said Wednesday.
A local businessman was accused of spying on the Seoul government and offering intelligence to the U.S. government. But Richard P. Lawless, former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs, raised suspicions of fabrication.
``This accusation of improper activity against the interests of the Republic of Korea, including accusations which were extended to me personally, did not just `accidentally' happen,'' he told reporters in Seoul.
Referring to the tragedy of two school girls being killed by a U.S. tank, he said, ``Many of these incidents served to promote anti-alliance and anti-U.S. sentiments and the U.S. spy incident was constructed to create additional damage.''
Lawless also denied the suggestion that U.S. officials including himself encouraged such improper actions, referring to numerous occasions mentioning him as one ``who used to work for the U.S. espionage agency.''
He did not elaborate on which forces fabricated the scandal.
During an National Assembly probe in 2006, Shin Hyun-deok, chairman of the now-defunct Gyeongin Broadcasting Company, alleged that a local businessman handed a document containing intelligence on the local and North Korean political situation to a U.S. intelligence agency.
Prosecutors began to investigate Baik Sung-hak, the head of Young An Headwear, who was suspected of drafting the document, called D-47 and written in English.
Rumors at the time suggested that the then-ruling camp attempted to manipulate public opinion ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
Baik, who had an information-gathering team under his charge, denied the spy charge, claiming he'd just listed some political issues not relevant to the U.S. agency.
He also insisted he never translated the document.
Lawless supported the suspicion of fabrication, pointing out that the D-47 was translated so poorly.
The Assembly accused both Shin and Baik of false testimony and the trial is still underway.
Stressing that the reputations of innocent people should be restored, the former U.S. official called on the Assembly to conduct investigations and the Korean judicial system to deal with the issue in a fair manner.