Parties agree on terms of NIS probe

Rep. Jeon Hae-cheol, center, and two other lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party answer to reporters’ questions at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday, after their press conference calling for Nam Jae-joon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), to step down. They claimed that Nam is unqualified to hold that office because he “illegally” disclosed the minutes of the 2007 Inter-Korean Summit to some lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

• Published Aug 6, 2013 5:11 PM KST
• Updated Aug 6, 2013 5:11 PM KST

By Jun Ji-hye

Rival parties provisionally agreed Tuesday to call Won Sei-hoon, former director of the spy agency, and ex-Seoul police chief Kim Yong-pan, to appear at National Assembly hearings as witnesses.

The National Assembly Special Committee is currently conducting an investigation into the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) meddling in the 2012 presidential election.

According to a provisional agreement drawn up by floor and vice-floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), parties will file a complaint with the prosecution against the two, if they fail to attend the Assembly session without reasonable cause.

Won and Kim are two key figures in the NIS case because both were indicted on charges of violating the Election Law in June. According to the prosecution, Won ordered his agents to conduct an undercover cyber campaign to discredit the DP’s candidate Moon Jae-in during the presidential election, and Kim ordered the police to minimize their investigation into this.

Taking into consideration that witnesses should be notified of their required attendance at the hearings at least a week in advance, the ruling party and the DP postponed the hearings for on Aug. 14 and 19.

“If witnesses fail to appear before the Assembly for questioning on those days, or parties agree to question more figures, we will hold one more hearings on Aug. 21,” said Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, the ruling party’s representative for the probe, at a briefing.

Such hearings were initially scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

About twenty figures will likely face questions at the hearings.

Both parties also postponed the deadline of the Assembly probe until Aug. 23 in order to secure sufficient time to draw up a joint report of the investigation results. The investigation was supposed to finish on Aug. 15.

Conceding to the demands of the DP, both parties are said to plan to ask the present NIS head Nam Jae-joon to officially allow former and incumbent NIS agents, including Won, to give testimony at the hearings.

The request came because the opposition party was concerned about witnesses possibly refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions, on basis that anyone previously and currently involved with the organization has a legal responsibility to keep the agency’s activities confidential.

The ruling party, however, did not give a definite answer to the DP’s demand to invite Kim Moo-sung, a seasoned Saenuri Party lawmaker, and Kwon Young-se, ambassador to China, to appear as witnesses.

The DP suspects that the two acquired the minutes of the 2007 inter-Korean summit from the NIS last December, well before the present head Nam released a version of it in June.

“Rival parties have not been able to narrow differences over whether the Assembly has to invite the two figures to its hearings. We will keep discussing it and do the best to reach an agreement no later than Wednesday,” said DP’s Jung Cheong-rae.

Rep. Shin Kyoung-min of the DP said: “The probe will be meaningless if we fail to bring Kim and Kwon to the hearings.”

Both parties plan to conduct a plenary session of the committee Wednesday to finally decide the probe schedules and the witness list.