South Korea: investigations within the intelligence agency, suspicions of leniency towards Pyongyang

South Korean army patrols monitor the border with North Korea, January 5, 2022 © AHN YOUNG-JOON / AP

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1 min

In South Korea, two former heads of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) are under investigation for their alleged mishandling of cases involving Pyongyang.

One is accused of prematurely closing an investigation into two North Korean fishermen returned to North Korea and the other of erasing reports of the North's murder of a South Korean fisheries official.

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with our correspondent in Seoul,

Did the former South Korean government attempt to cover up cases involving North Korea to facilitate its outstretched hand policy?

In the South, suspicions crystallize around two former bosses of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) accused of having botched two separate investigations involving Pyongyang.

Park Jie-won and his predecessor Suh Hoon both served as heads of the state spy agency under ex-president Moon Jae-in's administration until his term ended last May. .

The NIS filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Park for suppressing reports of the shooting and killing of a fisheries official by North Korean Coast Guardsmen while on duty near the inter-Korean maritime border in September 2020. The then government concluded that he was killed while attempting to defect to the North.

A conclusion that no evidence has come to support until today.

Suh is suspected of having prematurely ordered the end of an investigation into two North Korean fishermen sent back to the North, apparently against their will to defect.

It was in November 2019.

An official in the current presidential office said the two cases could amount to a "state crime against humanity" if the suspicions were confirmed.

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• North Korea

• South Korea