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The former head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency Kim Hyung-wook, who disappeared in October 1979, was killed on orders of his successor Kim Jae-kyu, an investigation has found. His body was dumped on the outskirts of Paris, France, a National Intelligence Service (NIS) committee looking into dark episodes in the agency's past revealed in an interim report on their probe into the ex-spymaster¡¯s mysterious disappearance.
But the truth committee said Wednesday it has so far been unable to pin the ultimate blame on then-president Park Chung-hee, who it said was ¡°indignant at Kim Hyung-wook¡¯s anti-government activities and ordered them stopped."
The investigation found that the new KCIA director Kim Jae-kyu in late September 1979 ordered Lee Sang-yeol, the chargé d'affaires at the Korean Embassy in Paris and head of KCIA activities there, to liquidate the former spymaster. Lee put together a hit squad of KCIA operatives Shin Hyeon-jin and Lee Man-su (not their real names), who were in Paris ostensibly studying French. Along with two Eastern European nationals, Shin and Lee kidnapped Kim on October 7, and one of the Eastern Europeans finished the former KCIA chief off with a silenced pistol on the outskirts of Paris, the NIS committee said.
But questions remain. One is why Shin, who drove all the way to the site of the killing, cannot seem to remember where the body was left. Other details, including that the gun was ¡°lost¡± at the scene of the killing, are also less than persuasive. The interim report also omits to say why Kim went to Paris alone despite opposition from his family. Lee Sang-yeol, a key figure in the hit, is not talking.
The committee said it decided to release the interim report as fresh speculation over Kim's disappearance became rampant, adding to public confusion despite the best efforts of the NIS to get to the bottom of the incident. But the truth committee said the case was by no means closed.
Besides investigating the cloak-and-dagger saga surrounding Kim, the committee is also looking into several other murky episodes. They are the forcible appropriation by the government of the Joengsu Scholarship Fund in 1962, the People's Revolutionary Party incident of 1974 where eight innocent people were convicted and executed on trumped-up charges, the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung in 1973, the destruction of KAL 858 in 1987, and the South Korean Workers Party Central Regional Branch incident of 1992, where political activists were accused of being North Korean spies.
"A fair amount of progress has been made on the Joengsu Scholarship Fund incident, but as the KAL and South Korean Workers Party incidents are extremely complex, they are going to take some time,¡± the committee said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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