Intelligence slander scandal unresolved ahead of election

Voters in Korea will elect a new president Wednesday without learning the truth about the alleged intervention in the election by intelligence authorities.

“We’ll continue the investigation after taking over the analysis results of hard disks from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and two personal computers of a National Intelligence Agency employee,” police said Tuesday, adding, “It`ll take quite a long time, so we cannot predict when the investigation will end.”

Police will start probes based on some 20 usernames, some 20 nicknames, and IP addresses from the two PCs. Investigators decided to check for comments slandering Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the main opposition Democratic United Party, by engaging 17 investigators to go through usernames and nicknames one by one on the Internet because they cannot force a probe at the moment.

Police probed a few Twitter IDs that the party on Monday claimed were used by the intelligence employee. They failed, however, to find evidence that the tweets were written by her or a trace of slander.

“The Democratic United Party keeps sending additional documents, which are more opinions requesting an investigation without clear evidence of an election law violation,” a police source said, adding, “It’s difficult to force an investigation.”

tigermask@donga.com