Arrest warrant issued for intelligence official accused of leaking undercover agents' names

A military court issued an arrest warrant for a civilian official of the Defense Intelligence Command who is accused of leaking the names of South Korean military intelligence agents working overseas, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

A photograph of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on May 9, 2022. [NEWS1]

A military court issued an arrest warrant for a civilian official of the Defense Intelligence Command who is accused of leaking the names of South Korean military intelligence agents working overseas, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

According to the ministry, the official, who remains unnamed, has been charged with violating the Military Secret Protection Act by passing a list of the command’s undercover agents to a Chinese national of Korean descent.

Military sources said that the ultimate recipient of the list has not yet been determined, but they are not excluding the possibility that the Chinese national could be an informant for North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, given that undercover South Korean intelligence agents abroad usually work on gathering intelligence on North Korea.

The sources also said that the Defense Counterintelligence Command confiscated the suspect’s laptop and mobile phone in late June to determine how much classified data he had stored on his personal devices and how the information was transmitted to other people.

The suspect, who has been suspended from most of his regular duties at the Defense Intelligence Command, has denied the charges and told investigators that his computer was hacked, according to the Defense Ministry.

Despite the sensitive nature of the leaked information, the suspect has not been charged with violating the National Security Act or the Espionage Act as a clear link has not yet been established between the North and the case.

Only actions explicitly intended to aid or abet the North can be prosecuted under those laws.

According to sources, the suspect moved to Busan shortly after he was sidelined from work and only commuted into the Defense Intelligence Command’s headquarters in the capital region on occasion, leading the investigators to deem him a flight risk and file an arrest warrant.

The case could reinvigorate calls for Seoul to stiffen penalties for all people who leak state secrets to foreign agents.

In its current wording, the Espionage Act only makes it illegal to spy for an “enemy country,” which is usually interpreted to refer to North Korea.

The National Security Act, which forbids “praise, incitement or the propagation of activities of an anti-state organization,” is also currently applied against only people suspected of conducting pro-North Korea activities.

But its use as a tool of political repression by the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s has led liberals to call for safeguards against its abuse or outright abolition.

The amendment to the National Intelligence Service Act passed by the Democratic Party (DP)-controlled National Assembly in 2021 came into effect this year, transferring the right to investigate violations of the National Security Act from the National Intelligence Service to the police.

Both People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon and former National Assembly Deputy Speaker Kim Young-joo have called for expanding the scope of South Korea’s counter-espionage laws.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]