Warrants Issued for Intelligence Chiefs

The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office requested arrest warrants for Shin Gun and Yim Dong on Monday in its ongoing wiretap investigation.

The two former chiefs of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) are being charged with violating the Communications Privacy Act.

On the same day, Kim Eun-sung, the former deputy chief of the NIS, confessed that former chief Shin ordered his key officials to cover up the wiretapping incident.

Kim also stated that the two former NIS chiefs Shin and Yim were briefed daily on the illegal wiretapping and also issued direct orders encouraging the use of illegal wiretap surveillance concerning certain matters.

“Wiretap surveillance of politicians and domestic figures was categorized as class-A intelligence,” Kim testified.

To questions asking if Shin told former Section 8 chief Kim to go back on his former statements of admitting the wiretapping, Kim admitted the allegation by saying, “Haven’t others already confessed to that?”

The former deputy Kim also said that he once reported separately to Yim and Shin the content of wiretaps conducted on a phone conversation between Kim Hong-gul, son of former President Kim Dae-joong, and Choi Kyu-sun, the former executive of Future Environment. Their phone conversation was about former NIS chiefs Yim and Shin. “After the report, former chief Yim ordered a secret investigation on Choi Kyu-sun,” said Kim.

As for the ongoing investigation about the Samsung Group’s illicit political fund scandal back in 1997, the Seoul district prosecutor’s office plans to subpoena Hong Suk-hyon, former ambassador to the U.S. as a witness on November 16.

Jin-Kyun Kil leon@donga.com