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The second trial of former National Intelligence directors Lim Dong-won and Shin Kuhn on charges of illegal wiretapping is being delayed for a second month. That¡¯s because the NIS is preventing its former and present employees from testifying in court. At the end of last month, the NIS had sent state prosecutors an official letter saying it would not permit its staff to testify. The National Intelligence Service Law requires the authorization of the intelligence chief when either a former or present employee of that agency is to testify in court on matters involving state secrets.
Yet during the first trial in July last year, the NIS allowed its employees to testify, and based on their testimonies, the former NIS chiefs were handed three-year jail terms with four years of probation. Three of the four witnesses slated to testify in the second trial were those who did so in the first trial. The only difference is that last November, the chief of the NIS changed from Kim Seung-kew to Kim Man-bok.
Everyone knows now that the NIS used tax money to develop wiretapping devices and had been busy eavesdropping on citizens. In November 2005, state prosecutors announced the results of their investigation that the NIS had eavesdropped on mobile phone conversations of around 1,800 citizens, including ruling and opposition politicians, government ministers and vice ministers, corporate CEOs and executives, and senior officials at news media organizations, around the clock. NIS chief Kim may try to block his employees from testifying, but that does not erase what has been revealed.
The NIS said it is not allowing employees to testify for fear of ¡®exposing their identities.¡¯ But in August, the NIS chief himself appeared in front of cameras and even exposed the identity of sunglass man, the operative who had taken part in negotiations for the release of Korean hostages abducted by the Taliban. He even posted his mobile phone number on his junior high school alumni website. He is in no position to protect the identities of his employees.
The illegal wiretaps by the NIS are an embarrassment that needs to be done away with rather than protected as a state secret. Moreover, the court reportedly informed the NIS that sensitive testimony could be heard behind closed doors, yet the NIS is still barring its employees from testifying. There are rumors that the NIS is seeking to protect former president Kim Dae-jung. We should use the occasion to revise the National Intelligence Service Law so that in cases of infractions where the NIS overstepped its boundaries, employees can be compelled to testify by a court of law without their chief¡¯s approval.
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