Parties fail to decide witnesses on NIS probe

Rep. Shin Ki-nam, left, of the main opposition Democratic Party presides over a plenary session to conclude details of a parliament investigation into the National Intelligence Service’s alleged meddling in the 2012 presidential election held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Monday. He chairs the National Assembly Special Committee. Rival parties, however, failed to decide on witnesses to face questions during hearings scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

The two main rival parties in the parliament failed to agree Monday on who should face questions regarding the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) alleged illegal intervention in the 2012 presidential election.

During a plenary session of the National Assembly Special Committee, the parties planned to fix details to resume the parliamentary investigation, which was crippled last week due to a boycott by the ruling Saenuri Party. This task should have included deciding who is to be questioned and give testimony at hearings.

Hours before the session, Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the ruling party and Rep. Jung Cheong-rae of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), both are vice chairmen of the committee, met to exchange each party’s suggestions on witnesses and to draw up a final list to be brought in during the session.

“The ruling party proposed a total of 91 witnesses, while the DP suggested 117. Among those, 18 figures coincided on the lists drawn up by the two parties. But they failed to make a decision on who should be included on a final list,” said an Assembly official.

Potential witnesses who drew the most attention were former NIS chief Won Sei-hoon and former Seoul police chief, Kim Yong-pan.

Won and Kim were both indicted on charges of violating the Election Law in June. According to the prosecution, Won directed NIS agents to conduct an undercover cyber campaign to discredit opposition candidates during the presidential election, and Kim ordered the police to minimize their investigation.

“Whether to include Won and Kim on the witness list is not negotiable because they are people directly related to the incident,” said Jeon Hae-cheol of the DP.

However, even after parties agree to call Won and Kim as witnesses of the probe, whether they will actually appear before the Assembly remains to be seen because some Saenuri members took issue with the Criminal Procedure Law.

This stipulates that those who are currently on trial can refuse to answer questions from the parliament, if there is possibility that their answers might influence a judgment toward a conviction.

The two sides also clashed over the ruling party’s demand that two DP lawmakers, Kim Hyun and Jin Sun-mee, be included on the witness list. The Saenuri Party has claimed that the two mistreated and violated the human rights of a female NIS agent, who was suspected of unlawfully posting online comments critical of opposition candidates, while preventing her from leaving for more than a day last December.

“If the DP refuses to agree to adopt two lawmakers as witnesses, it will be an abuse of lawmakers’ privilege,” said Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the ruling party.

As for who should give testimony, both parties initially agreed to each recommend three figures. The DP suggested Pyo Chang-won, a criminal psychologist who resigned from the Korea National Police University in protest over the NIS’s alleged cyber campaign last year.

During a meeting of vice chairmen a day earlier, Kweon and Jung agreed to normalize the investigation, resuming the NIS’s questioning session next Monday in which lawmakers will receive status reports from the spy agency.

The committee plans to hold hearings for two days beginning from next Wednesday.

Rival parties, however, are still expected to lock horns over which issues they will intensively handle for the rest of the investigation.

The DP wants to dig out the NIS’s “systematic involvement in the presidential election and other Key political issues,” while the ruling party intends to focus on the matter of violation of the NIS agent’s human rights.

Also, the Saenuri Party wants to focus on allegations that the DP members promised a former NIS agent surnamed Kim that the party would guarantee him a high ranking position after they successfully took power during the presidential election in return for the agent offering to provide internal information on psychological warfare techniques used by the NIS.