Investigators Target Former NIS Director in Wiretapping Scandal

Investigators from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office who are currently looking into the bugging scandal involving the National Intelligence Service (NIS) plan to summon Lee Jong-chan, the first NIS director under the Kim Dae-jung administration, sometime this week.

Prosecutors decided to investigate former NIS directors Lee and Cheon Yong-taek before summoning former NIS directors Shin Gun and Lim Dong-won, who are suspected of overseeing wiretap operations by former NIS deputy director Kim Eun-seong (who has been sentenced to jail) under their tenures.

Prosecutors are planning to probe whether Lee knew the background behind the development of R-2, a bugging device that uses wired relay networks, and its illegal bugging operations under his terms of office (March 1998 to March 1999).

The prosecution also summoned an NIS manager, identified as Hong, who was the subject of an NIS internal investigation on charges of delivering intercepted reports to Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Hyung-keun in 2002 in order to investigate how he leaked those reports.

Jin-Kyun Kil leon@donga.com