Reversing the existing statement that “source cannot be deleted”… Emphasis on “There were no delete instructions”
Park Ji-won, a former director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), who is being investigated by the prosecution in connection with the West Sea shooting incident, said he had just learned that NIS documents could be deleted during the investigations.
At 22:32 on the 14th, former Director Park met with reporters after completing the prosecution’s investigation and said, “I said that the ‘deletion’ does not originally exist in the NIS, but as I was investigating today, it was canceled .” I knew it this time,” he said.
He is said to have discovered through investigation that day that his earlier claim that all NIS documents remain on the main server and it is impossible to completely delete them was wrong.
When asked if there were indeed any documents deleted at the time of the incident, he avoided answering, saying, “I won’t give a specific answer.”
Park, however, argued that he did not order NIS personnel to delete documents or reports relating to the incident.
He pointed out, “I didn’t order the staff to take it down and I didn’t even know it was taken down (at the time).”
On September 22, 2020, after the late Lee Dae-joon, a civil servant in the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, was killed by the North Korean military, former Director Park was charged with unauthorized deletion of related reports of intelligence (abuse of authority under the National Intelligence Service Act) for the purpose of hiding this fact. In July of this year, he was charged 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, after a meeting of related ministers was held at 1:00 am on the 23rd, the day after Lee was killed .
Prosecutors suspect that after attending the meeting, Park received instructions to maintain security from Seo Hoon (detained prosecutor) and ordered the report to be deleted.
While reporting to the attorney’s office around 10:00 a.m. that same day, former director Park said, “As director, I haven’t asked the staff to cancel anything.” It’s the original mission of NIS,” he said.
/yunhap news
