Kim Jeong-ki, the former consul general of Shanghai who is facing further investigation into the “Shanghai Scandal,” has raised the possibility of a conspiracy in the case involving several Korean diplomats and a Chinese woman.
In an interview with local dailies, Kim said an intelligence agency was trying to discredit him.
He reportedly had a fractious relationship with the deputy consul general of Shanghai, who was an officer of the National Intelligence Service.
Korean consulates in foreign missions usually are comprised of officials dispatched from various government agencies. Kim is a political appointee.
A renowned English teacher in the 1980s and 1990s, Kim worked for President Lee Myung-bak as a campaign strategist during the 2007 presidential election. Kim was appointed as Shanghai consul general on June 13, 2008. Recently the President also named a former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Agency as consul general to Osaka.
Kim said that files leaked to the 33-year-old Chinese woman named Deng were not confidential but a directory he drafted personally four or five years ago. The contact information included cell phone numbers of 200 prominent Korean politicians including Rep. Lee Sang-deuk, the brother of President Lee Myung-bak, and an emergency phone list for use by the South Korean consulate in Shanghai.
Kim said that the directory must have been stolen when he left the consulate last year for family reasons, and also claimed that many of the phone numbers of the prominent politicians are no longer valid.
Kim said Deng facilitated resolving several challenging cases for the South Korean mission. One of those was the repatriation to Seoul of 11 North Korean defectors and a former prisoner of war from the Korean War in November 2008, according to a local report.
Kim denied the allegation that he had an inappropriate relationship with Deng.