Phone data deleted after testimony on Yoon orders

Encrypted phone data linked to former President Yoon Suk Yeol, former First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won, and former Seoul Metropolitan Police Chief Kim Bong-shik was remotely deleted shortly after Hong testified before the National Assembly last December.

According to police and the Presidential Security Service on Friday, the deletion occurred following Hong’s December 6 appearance before the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee. There, he stated that Yoon had instructed him by encrypted phone at 10:53 p.m. on December 3, the day martial law was declared, to “round everyone up and clean things up.”

The remarks prompted speculation that the Presidential Security Service, upon learning of the testimony, may have erased the data under internal orders.

The National Police Agency’s special investigation unit confirmed Monday that it uncovered evidence of remote deletion while examining server logs from the Presidential Security Service. Investigators found that someone had accessed the encrypted phone system remotely and removed stored data.

Authorities are now focusing on whether the Presidential Security Service carried out the deletion and whether Yoon personally directed the action.


이상환 payback@donga.com