NIS: "All Sewol Ferry-related materials will be fully provided to the SAPA"

"Providing All 640,000 Records... We Will Ensure No Misunderstandings"

Park Ji-won, Director of the National Intelligence Service, attending the full meeting of the Intelligence Committee held at the National Assembly on the 27th of last month. doso7@

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced on the 14th that it plans to actively provide all Sewol Ferry-related data (over 640,000 items) in its possession to the Special Investigation Commission on Social Disasters (SICSD).

On the same day, the NIS stated, "Following the passage of the bill extending the activities of the SICSD in the National Assembly, we have decided to allow the commission to review the list of Sewol Ferry-related data (over 640,000 items) held by the NIS in order to actively cooperate with the unresolved fact-finding efforts."

Until now, the NIS has ▲extracted a first list of all data containing the words 'Sewol' or 'Sewolho' (over 640,000 items), ▲created a second list (about 160,000 items) by electronically removing identical and duplicate data from the first list, and ▲provided data to the SICSD after further removing largely similar content from the second list (third list of about 50,000 items). However, the SICSD has claimed that the NIS has been selectively filtering the data and effectively refusing to provide materials necessary for fact-finding, demanding the prompt provision of the entire list.

The NIS said, "To dispel misunderstandings, we have decided to allow the SICSD to review the first list of over 640,000 items," adding, "If the SICSD requests direct access to specific data during the review process, we plan to allow access to materials excluding those classified for security or other confidentiality reasons, following proper legal procedures."

The NIS plans to explain this decision to the SICSD within this week and proceed with detailed practical consultations regarding the schedule and methods.

The NIS expressed hope that "this decision will expedite the fact-finding of the Sewol Ferry incident and provide some comfort to the victims," and stated, "We will continue to actively cooperate in uncovering the truth."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.