By Jun Ji-hye
National Police Agency Chief Lee Sung-han Thursday denied allegations that the police attempted to downsize its initial investigation into meddling by the spy agency in last year’s Dec. 19 presidential election.
Police are accused by opposition parties of having sided with the spy agency by announcing, just several days before the election, that no agent posted any comments that could exert influence on the election.
During his appearance at the National Assembly for questioning, Lee said, “As far as I know, at a time when the police announced its investigation results, there was no evidence that an agent of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) posted online comments criticizing opposition candidate Moon Jae-in and supporting President Park Geun-hye.”
Lee’s comments were an answer to Rep. Lee Sang-kyu of the Unified Progressive Party’s question over whether the police’s announcement was genuine.
Former NIS head Won Sei-hoon and former Seoul police chief Kim Yong-pan were indicted without detention by the prosecution in June for violating the Election Law.
According to the prosecution, Won ordered his agents to conduct an undercover cyber campaign so that “North Korean sympathizers” are not able to take power, while Kim ordered police to reduce the scope of their investigation.
Rep. Jung Cheong-rae of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) argued that the police announcement of the investigation results on December 16, three days before the polling day, had a profound effect on the election.
The questioning session was crippled in the morning after all members of the ruling Saenuri Party left the meeting room in protest of Jung who attempted to show a video clip of President Park.
The video showed that then candidate Park said, “No evidence was found to prove that the NIS agent conducted cyber smear campaign,” during one of the televised discussions.
Rep. Kim Jae-won of the ruling party later said: “We walked out of the session not because of Park’s video clip, it was because Jung exceeded his speaking time which is limited to 5 minutes.”
A day earlier, the committee received reports from the Ministry of Justice.
The most heated debate was opposition lawmaker Park Beom-kye’s release of former ruling party lawmaker Kwon Young-se’s audio files. Kwon is now serving as ambassador to China.
According to the files, Kwon, then chief of the situation room of President Park’s presidential election camp, said, “If we (Saenuri Party) successfully come to power, we will disclose the minutes of the 2007 inter-Korean summit.”
Kwon also said in the files: “Won Sei-hoon edited the minutes to give advantages to the Saenuri Party.”
The DP argued that the NIS’s illegal leakage of the summit records to Saenuri lawmakers is in line with the agency’s illegal intervention in the presidential election.
But, ruling party members refused to discuss the matters further, saying such issues are not included in the scope of the investigation.
The parliamentary committee plans to receive reports from the NIS today.