By Kang Hyun-kyung
An official of the National Police Agency (NPA) is suspected of deleting data from a computer hard disc in an attempt to destroy evidence before the prosecution’s raid on the agency last week, prosecutors said Monday.
Some NPA ranking officers are under suspicion of attempting to impede the investigation of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) over allegations it meddled in last year’s presidential election.
The NPA officer, whose name was not available, was in charge of the NPA cyber team and responsible for analyzing cyber crimes.
He reportedly used the professional elimination tool, called degaussing.
The officer is alleged to have said that he accidentally deleted it while working on the computer and that he had no intention of destroying any evidence associated with the NPA case in question.
Another official from the NPA defended him, arguing that the officer didn’t use degaussing and assumed that the removed data were about his personal information.
Despite this, suspicions about the officer’s motives were not cleared as the removal of data occurred shortly before the agency was to be searched by the prosecution.
Prosecutors raided the NPA as part of the probe into former police chief Kim Yon-pan’s alleged peddling of influence to cover up the case where personnel of the spy agency attempted to steer public opinion in favor of the ruling party during the presidential election last year.
Several NIS personnel were found to have posted messages on online forums or Internet discussion sites to discredit the main opposition party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in.
Kim was accused of having directed NPA personnel to hurriedly wrap up the case before the investigation is concluded.