3 Former Heads Likely to Deny Role in Bugging


By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter


Following last week’s unprecedented raid on the National Intelligence Service (NIS) headquarters in Seoul by the prosecution, prosecutors will call in former spy agency chief Chun Yong-taek for questioning on Tuesday.

Investigators said the former governing Uri Party lawmaker is suspected of having made backdoor deals with the former head of the wiretapping team Kong Un-yong after seizing tapes from him in November 1999. He is also suspected of ordering the special unit codenamed ``Mirim’’ to get rid of two tapes containing information against him, and he is also accused of having taken advantage of illegally wiretapped information for his own interest.

Prosecutors said that they will also summon Oh Chung-so, former senior official of the agency during the Kim Young-sam administration, for questioning on Wednesday.

Oh is suspected of having led the reorganization of the agency’s wiretapping team in 1994, which was disbanded one year ago. A few more former ranking officials of the agency under both the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations will be questioned this week.

The prosecution, however, has not yet decided whether three other former NIS chiefs _ Lee Jong-chan, Lim Dong-won and Shin Gunn, who headed the NIS before March 2002 during the Kim administration, will be summoned or not.

The three former NIS chiefs met incumbent NIS director Kim Seung-kyu late yesterday, insisting that no wiretapping had been ordered by the presidential office of Chong Wa Dae or NIS chiefs. Tensions between the former president and the ruling camp intensified over the recent NIS announcement that illegal wiretapping continued during the early period of the Kim government.

The three former directors _ Lee, Lim and Shin _ are likely to make a statement soon, probably denying allegations that they and former President Kim were involved in, or at least aware of, illegal eavesdropping during the 1998-2003 Kim administration.

Former President Kim and his aides, as well as former NIS directors who served during Kim’s government, have denied any knowledge of the illegal practices, but have refrained from giving detailed explanations.

They are considering submitting a detailed report to the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly, sources said.

Due to a regulation of the agency banning former and incumbent agency officials from revealing internal information to the public without the NIS director’s permission, they have already applied for an approval from the incumbent NIS director.

During last week’s raid, investigators found a record of the spy agency’s use of the cell phone-bugging device, but whether the list included the names of influential political figures, business leaders or journalists like the ``X-File audio tape scandal’’ is not known.

Some critics said the NIS might have intentionally disclosed lists of criminal suspects such as drug traffickers who had been wiretapped by the agency to justify their past bugging practices.

The scandal erupted last month when local news media released information from illegally-recorded tapes of a conversation between Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Hong Seok-hyun, then president of the Samsung Group-affiliated daily, JoongAng Ilbo, and Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo discussing providing slush funds to presidential candidates in 1997.

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