hankyoreh

at Seoul Central District Court

By Kim Seon-sik, staff reporter

The trial about charges that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) manipulated public opinion and interfered in politics shortly before the 2012 presidential election, ended with the court concluding that the agency illegally interfered in politics on the orders of former NIS director Won Sei-hoon, 63.

However, the court found Won and the other defendants not guilty of charges of violating the Public Official Election Act, arguing that no illegal election campaigning had occurred. If the court had also found the defendants guilty of violating the Public Official Election Act, it could have undermined the legitimacy of President Park Geun-hye’s victory in the election. Instead, the court only found the defendants guilty on half the charges.

Hon. Lee Beom-gyun of the Seoul Central District Court, criminal division no. 21, on Sep. 11 found Won guilty of violating the National Intelligence Service Act. Won had been indicted on charges of having around 70 agents from the NIS psychological warfare team post political comments on websites from Feb. 2009 to Dec. 2012.

The judge sentenced Won to two years and six months in prison and stripped him of his job qualifications for three years, with the sentence suspended for four years. Thus, Won managed to avoid returning to prison only two days after his release on Sept. 9, following the completion of a one year and two months prison term for graft.

“The actions of the National Intelligence Service are a grave crime, since they involve a state institution interfering directly in the free development of public opinion, thus weakening democracy,” the court said, but explained that it had taken into consideration the fact that Won had committed the crime without being actively aware that the deed was illegal. Lee Jong-myeong, former third deputy department head at the NIS, and Min Byeong-ju, former chief of the psychological warfare division, who were indicted on the same charges, were both sentenced to a prison term of one year and stripped of their job qualifications, with their sentence suspended for two years.

The court accepted the prosecutors’ argument that Won Sei-hoon gave orders for agents from the psychological warfare team to interfere in domestic politics by using 175 Twitter accounts to make 113,621 tweets and retweets and to make 2,125 posts and click support/oppose 1,214 times on internet portal sites.

“Disguising themselves as ordinary people, the NIS agents were not working to reveal the truth about North Korea’s psychological warfare against the South; rather, they were promoting government policies including the Four Major Rivers project and criticizing specific political parties and politicians. This cannot be regarded as collecting and disseminating domestic security information, which would fall within the scope of the agency’s duties,” the court said.

The court also concluded that the orders that Won made during the monthly meeting with department heads and during the morning briefing were communicated to the agents from the psychological warfare team by deputy department heads, bureau chiefs, and division leaders, and that the results of their activities were reported to Won.

Despite this, the court concluded that Won’s instructions and the action of the NIS agents could not be regarded as election campaigning. “Election campaigning is strictly distinguished from actions that affect an election; it must involve activities that are actively planned with the object of helping a particular candidate get elected, receive votes, or be defeated in an election,” the court said.

“During the meeting with the department heads, Won actually only ordered them to have all agents stay alert so as not to cause any controversy during the election period. We were unable to find that he gave any direct instructions about the election,” the court said.

But given that NIS agents were making posts on Twitter until immediately before the election criticizing opposition candidates Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo, the court’s decision to find Won and the other defendants not guilty of violating the Public Official Election Act is likely to spark controversy. The prosecutors said that they would consider appealing the decision.

“The instructions that I gave were a response to North Korea’s continuing criticism of the government. I didn’t even know what the agents were actually writing in their comments. I will appeal the decision,” Won told reporters as he was leaving the courthouse.

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