미국 뉴욕타임즈지는 18일, 한국 국정원 요원 9명이 2009년부터 대북심리전의 일환으로 인터넷상에 5,000건이 넘는 글을 써왔는데 그 중엔 작년 대선을 앞두고 상대당인 민주당을 공격하면서 해온 것도 있다고 검찰측이 말한 사실을 보도했다.
이러한 요원들의 최고책임자 원세훈은 온라인상의 조작을 감독한 혐의로 고발에 이어 기소되었다. 검찰은 그 9명을 기소하지 않은 이유로 그들은 그저 원세훈의 지시만 따르는 자들이기에 때문이라 했다. 그러나 민주당에서는 검찰의 이러한 조치는 불편한 사실을 가리기 위한 눈가림일 뿐이라고 비난했다.
다음은 뉴욕타임즈 보도 전문.
South Korean Intelligence Agents Accused of Tarring Opposition Online Before ElectionBy
CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: June 14, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Nine agents from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service wrote more than 5,000 posts on the Internet in a psychological warfare campaign against North Korea since 2009, using some of them to attack domestic opposition parties and their candidates ahead of South Korea’s presidential election last December, state prosecutors said on Friday.
.The agents’ top supervisor, Won Sei-hoon, the former director of the intelligence agency, was accused of overseeing the online operation and was indicted on Friday. Prosecutors said they did not indict the nine agents because they were simply obeying Mr. Won’s instructions — a decision that the political opposition called a whitewash on Friday.
Mr. Won, who was not arrested, faces trial on charges of breaking the national election law, which bars government officials from using their influence to affect a vote, and of violating a separate law that prohibits government intelligence officials from meddling in domestic politics.
While announcing the results of their two-month investigation, prosecutors did not comment on whether or how the operation affected the Dec. 19 election. President Park Geun-hye, the governing party’s candidate, won one million more votes than her chief rival, Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the main opposition Democratic Party and a major target of the online criticism.
The agents used hundreds of Internet IDs to upload comments as part of what the intelligence authorities have called a normal psychological campaign against North Korea. The intelligence agency has accused North Korea of using the Internet to try to spread Communist propaganda and spawn antigovernment sentiment in South Korea, one of the world’s most Internet-connected countries.
But the intelligence agents also uploaded more than 1,700 posts that meddled in South Korean domestic politics, the prosecutors said in a statement. The agents’ online comments often attacked labor activists, opposition politicians and other critics of the government, branding them as “leftist followers of North Korea.”
The government critics “are trying to take power in connection with the North, and if we don’t respond decisively this year, the National Intelligence Service will disappear,” Mr. Won said during a meeting with senior intelligence officials in February 2012, according to the prosecutors’ statement.
Prosecutors saw at least 73 of the posts uploaded by the agents between September and December as attempts to influence the presidential election. The posts criticized the main opposition Democratic Party and a minor progressive party and their presidential candidates, accusing them of being too soft on North Korea or sympathizing with it.
In their nationally televised announcement of the investigation’s results, prosecutors said the intelligence agents overstepped their duties by using their anti-North Korean psychological operations to attack the domestic opposition’s North Korea policies. The opposition parties have called for a new parliamentary investigation, claiming that the intelligence agency’s online activities were directly aimed at helping Ms. Park’s election.
On Friday, they also called on President Park’s justice minister and chief secretary of legal affairs to step down, accusing them of pressuring the prosecutors to whitewash their inquiry and limit the potential political fallout against Ms. Park. They and the prosecutors denied the opposition’s accusations.
Ms. Park’s office did not comment on the prosecutors’ announcement. Mr. Won was not immediately available for comment. Through his lawyers, he has denied interfering in the election, saying that his agency’s online activities were part of normal psychological operations focused on North Korea.
Mr. Won had served as the top intelligence official under President Lee Myung-bak, Ms. Park’s predecessor, until Ms. Park took office in February.
During the campaign, the opposition said that the intelligence agency had engaged in illegal campaigning for Ms. Park. But three days before the election, the police announced that they had investigated and found no evidence to support the opposition’s accusations.
Also on Friday, Kim Yong-pan, the former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, was indicted on charges of withholding criminal evidence in an effort to illegally intervene in the police investigation by junior officers.
