Overturning the existing claim that ‘the source cannot be deleted’… Emphasis on “There was no deletion instruction”
Park Ji-won, former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), who was investigated by the prosecution in connection with the ‘West Sea shooting incident’, claimed that he newly learned that the NIS documents might be deleted during the investigation.
At 10:32 pm on the 14th, former director Park met with reporters following completing the prosecution’s investigation and said, “I’ve been saying that ‘deletion’ does not originally exist in the NIS, but as I was investigating today, it was deleted.” I knew this time,” he said.
It is said that he found out through the investigation that day that his previous claim that all documents of the NIS remain on the main server and it is impossible to completely delete them was wrong.
When asked if there were actually deleted documents at the time of the incident, he avoided answering, saying, “I will not give a specific answer.”
Park, however, maintained his claim that he had not ordered NIS staff to delete documents or reports related to the incident.
He emphasized, “I didn’t order the staff to delete it, and I didn’t even know that it was deleted (at the time).”
On September 22, 2020, following the late Lee Dae-joon, a public official of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, was killed by the North Korean military, former director Park was charged with unauthorized deletion of related intelligence reports (abuse of authority under the National Intelligence Service Act) for the purpose of concealing this fact. In July of this year, he was accused by the National Intelligence Service.
According to the results of the audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection, the NIS deleted 46 documents without permission, including intelligence reports, following a meeting of related ministers was held at 1:00 am on the 23rd, the day following Lee was shot.
Prosecutors suspect that following Park attended the meeting, he received instructions to maintain security from Seo Hoon (detained prosecution) and ordered the deletion of the report.
While appearing at the prosecutor’s office at around 10:00 am on the same day, former director Park said, “As the director, I did not ask the staff to delete anything.” It is the original mission of the National Intelligence Service,” he insisted.
/yunhap news
