'Seoul Spy Fabrication' Involvement Suspected NIS Investigators Acquitted in First Trial

Court: "Difficult to Believe Testimony of Yu Woosung's Brother"

National Intelligence Service (NIS) investigators who were prosecuted for assaulting Yu Ga-ryeo, the younger sister of Yu Woo-sung, a Chinese-Korean defector victim of the "Seoul City Public Official Spy Fabrication Case," and forcing her to give false testimony, were acquitted in the first trial.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the afternoon of the 9th, Judge Lee Seung-ho of the Criminal Division 12 at the Seoul Central District Court acquitted NIS investigators Yoo Mo and Park Mo, who were charged with violating the National Security Act and other offenses. The court stated, "Based solely on the evidence submitted by the prosecution, it is difficult to conclude that the defendants assaulted or threatened the victim to compel her to give involuntary or false testimony," adding, "Yu Ga-ryeo's testimony is difficult to believe as it stands."

The court noted, "Yu Ga-ryeo consistently testified as a witness in Yu Woo-sung’s criminal case and as a prosecution reference that she was assaulted and threatened," but added, "Witness A, who saw Yu Ga-ryeo at the Joint Interrogation Center during the investigation, testified that she was not crying at the time and that the investigators seemed to be considerate of the victim’s feelings. There is doubt as to whether acts of assault or threats actually occurred." Furthermore, "Yu Ga-ryeo initially claimed to have been assaulted in front of other staff members observing the investigation but later repeatedly changed her statement during the prosecution’s investigation and this court trial without providing a convincing explanation," and "there is suspicion that she altered her testimony to align with Yu Woo-sung’s criminal case statements." "It is also difficult to see any motive for the defendants to extract testimony against Yu Woo-sung through assault or threats," the court added.

Immediately after the trial, Yu Woo-sung told reporters, "The judge who heard the testimony about the harsh treatment left before the verdict due to a personnel transfer, and today’s judge only listened to the final arguments before delivering the judgment," adding, "The unjust South Korean court deeply pains and saddens me, and I want to say that the judge made a grave misjudgment before history." He also claimed, "I will reveal more details in the appeal trial."

Previously, Yoo and Park were prosecuted for verbally abusing and assaulting Yu Ga-ryeo during her interrogation in November 2012 and coercing her into giving false testimony that "Yu Woo-sung secretly entered North Korea and received a mission from the deputy director of the State Security Department." They were also charged with perjury for testifying as witnesses in Yu Woo-sung’s 2013 trial that "there was no assault during the investigation."

Yu Woo-sung, who worked as a contract public official for Seoul City from 2011, was prosecuted in 2013 on charges of passing information about domestic North Korean defectors to the North Korean State Security Department through Yu Ga-ryeo. However, the Supreme Court acquitted him after the prosecution’s "evidence fabrication" was revealed. Kim Mo, the NIS director who fabricated evidence to frame Yu Woo-sung as a spy, was prosecuted for falsifying official documents and fabricating evidence and was sentenced to four years in prison by the Supreme Court in 2015.

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