Prosecutors raided the Presidential Archives Thursday morning in a deepening investigation into the previous administration’s handling of the shooting death of a South Korean fisheries official by North Korea two years ago.
Investigators suspect that senior officials at the time had deleted related intelligence gathered from intercepted North Korean military communications, and attempted to suggest that the official tried to defect before his death in the Yellow Sea.
Former National Intelligence Service(NIS) Director Park Jie-won is accused of deleting an internal report that said the late Mr. Lee Dae-jun was more likely to have drifted into North Korean waters than attempted to defect to the North.
With the former spy chief denying the allegations, the prosecution is seeking to find out who is responsible for the previous administration’s conclusions regarding the intentions of the South Korean victim.
Investigators have been conducting forensics on materials collected during a raid of former NIS director’s residence last month. The prosecution is soon expected to summon Park and others for questioning.
Source: KBS World Radio