NIS officials jailed for document rigging

A Seoul court handed down jail sentences to several officials of the National Intelligence Service and aides on charges of fabricating documents used as evidence to back up allegedly groundless espionage charges against a North Korean defector.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced a 48-year-old senior NIS official, surnamed Kim, to two and a half years in prison, for forging the Chinese immigration records of Yoo Woo-seong, a 34-year-old defector who was then an employee of the Seoul municipal government, to frame him as a spy.

The court also sentenced another state intelligence officer, surnamed Lee, to one and a half years in prison for colluding with Kim.

One other incumbent official, surnamed Kwon, 50, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison with a two-year stay of execution.

In addition, two private aides (one Korean and one Korean-Chinese) working for the spy agency have also been sentenced to jail terms of from eight to 14 months. A Korean consul in China was issued a suspended jail term of one year with a probation of two years.

“There is no doubt that (the NIS officials and aides) rigged and misused the documents,” the court said in its ruling.

The NIS officials in question, the court said, obstructed the state’s criminal justice system and compromised public trust in official documents handled by diplomatic missions overseas.

The conviction on Tuesday is a severe blow to the credibility of the country’s two most powerful agencies, the NIS and the prosecution. The spy agency had already suffered a major blowback over its meddling in the 2012 presidential election, and the prosecution had also confronted a slew of corruption scandals.

The forgery scandal allegedly involved some prosecutors as well as NIS employees.

An opposition lawmaker said the prosecutors seemed to have urged the NIS to secure any evidence, regardless of the sources’ authenticity, to indict the ex-Seoul City employee for illicit money transfers to North Korea.

The Korean Bar Association said that the prosecution had continued to make false statements in court, as judges demanded more proof to back up the espionage charges against Yoo.

However, in August, the Justice Ministry took soft disciplinary actions against the prosecutors, who submitted fabricated documents to judges during Yoo’s trial. The NIS handed over the materials to the prosecutors.

The three implicated prosecutors were working for the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.

Two have been suspended of their duties for one month. The third will get a one-month salary reduction, according to the decision of the Justice Ministry.

A duty suspension can range from between one and six months.

Further, the ministry eased the penalty for the other senior prosecutor from three months of reduced wages ― proposed by the internal inspection board of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office ― to one month.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)