DP intensifies call for Assembly probe into illegal surveillance

By Kim Young-jin

Staff reporter

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) Tuesday took aim at the Lee Myung-bak administration over an alleged case of illegal surveillance and intensified its call for a National Assembly investigation into the matter.

The governing Grand National Party (GNP) also denounced the suspected unlawful activity. “Placing surveillance on a citizen was absolutely wrong,” GNP spokesman Cho Hae-jin said. “Prosecutors should thoroughly investigate the matter to find any illegalities and take stern measures in response.”

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into four officials at the Office of the Prime Minister who allegedly conducted unlawful surveillance on a businessman after he posted a video critical of the administration on a blog in 2008. The office is only mandated to investigate civil servants.

In a radio address, DP Chairman Chung Sye-kyun said the police, prosecution and the presidential office should all be held accountable for tacitly approving the surveillance and demanded a special counsel be created to conduct a probe.

"No organization of the incumbent regime is qualified to look into this case. The National Assembly must investigate it," he said.

The office has already relieved three of the officials of their posts for failing to confirm beforehand that the businessman, Kim Jong-ik, was a citizen, not a government official.

Rep. Jun Byung-hun of the DP stressed that the probe should investigate the entire chain of command to uncover where the surveillance order originated.

“This case shouldn’t be closed by simply cutting off the snake’s tail,” he said. “What is important is disclosing the body, finding out how the implicated officials are connected to it.”

Prosecutors said the officials, as well as the businessman Kim, will be summoned shortly.

Kim alleges that government officials ransacked his company to confiscate financial records and forced KB Bank, one of the firm’s main clients, to discontinue business deals with it.

The salvo of criticism from the DP comes as the GNP reels from successive defeats in the June local elections and over the Sejong City revision plan, which was voted down at the National Assembly last week.

The DP hopes to land another blow in the upcoming National Assembly by-elections, in which eight seats are up for grabs. The surveillance scandal is expected to be a hot-button issue in the run-up to the polls, slated for July 28.

Meanwhile, speculation has also been rampant that Prime Minister Chung Un-chan has offered his resignation to take responsibility for the administration’s failure to push the Sejong City revision through the legislature.

Under the plan, a business hub would have been created in South Chungcheong Province instead of the originally envisioned administrative town.