South Korea spy found dead with note denying agency targeted citizens

According to police officials, a South Korean spy was found dead in his vehicle on Saturday morning from what looks like a suicide.

The body of an employee from South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) was discovered in his vehicle on a mountain road in the city of Yongin, Seoul Capital Area.

It was revealed before the weekend that lawmakers planned to carry out a field inspection of the NIS by the end of the month – days earlier the agency’s chief admitted that hacking software had been purchased from an Italian firm in 2012, but he asserted that it was never intended for use on ordinary citizens.

Such explanations, however, have been met with skepticism by many in the country, and in particular, the main opposition party, which believes the NIS has also spied on South Korean civilians.

Police said the man, identified only by his family name Lim, apparently took his own life after leaving a handwritten will in his vehicle giving details of how the NIS had used a controversial hacking programme. “But there is nothing to be anxious about over any of my actions”.

Lee Chul-woo, head of a parliamentary intelligence committee, told AFP that Lim was the one who had purchased and run the Italian program. He said the programs have been used mainly for research as the country looks to strengthen its cyberwarfare capabilities against North Korea, which Seoul blames for repeatedly attacking Internet networks and stealing information from computers, Shin’s office said.

Two previous NIS directors, who successively headed the spy service from 1999 and 2003, were convicted and received suspended prison terms for overseeing the monitoring of mobile phone conversations of about 1,800 of South Korea’s political, corporate and media elite.

The charges related to an online smear campaign by NIS agents against the opposition party candidate whom the current president, Park Geun-Hye, defeated in the 2012 poll by a narrow margin.

The supreme court declined to rule on Won’s guilt, but ordered the high court to re-examine what it described as deficient evidence regarding crucial emails and tweets.