A South Korean intelligence official was found dead in an apparent suicide amid a growing political scandal over a covert hacking program used by the country’s spy agency, police said yesterday.
The 45-year-old from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) was discovered dead in his car on Saturday on a mountain road in Yongin, about 40km south of Seoul.
Police said the man, identified only by his family name, Lim, apparently took his own life after leaving a handwritten will in his car giving details of how the NIS had used a controversial hacking program. Government and NIS officials have admitted purchasing the program from an Italian company, but say it was only used to boost Seoul’s cyberwarfare capabilities against Pyongyang and not for any domestic monitoring.
However, opposition legislators said the NIS has used the program to spy on South Koreans.
Lee Chul-woo, a ruling party legislator who heads a parliamentary intelligence committee, said Lim had purchased and run the hacking program, which allows users to track smartphones and computers by installing spyware.
In a copy of his will released by police, Lim insisted the NIS had not spied on South Koreans and apologized for deleting files relating to the program.
“There was no monitoring of people at home,” he said.
“I deleted information that created misunderstandings about our counterterrorism and covert operations on North Korea... It was a mistake on my part. But there is nothing to be worried about over any of my actions,” he said.
The NIS had a notorious reputation in the decades of authoritarian rule before South Korea embraced democracy in the 1980s and its modern incarnation has faced a series of scandals, including election meddling.
Last week, the South Korean Supreme Court ordered a lower court to review its conviction of former spy chief Won Sei-hoon, who was jailed for three years on charges of illegally engaging in political acts.
The charges related to an online smear campaign by NIS agents against the opposition party candidate, who South Korean President Park Geun-hye defeated in the 2012 poll by a narrow margin.
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