Police Investigate Circumstances of Leak Involving Former Police Bureau Chief Kim Soonho

Park, a University Classmate, Questioned as Reference Witness

The police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the leak of materials from the Defense Security Command (now the Defense Counterintelligence Command) that detail the alleged "spy informant" activities of Kim Soonho, former Director of the Police Bureau at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (currently President of the Korean National Police University and Commissioner General).

The Anti-Corruption and Public Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on September 25 that it had searched the home, vehicle, and mobile phone of Park, a university classmate of former Director Kim, on September 1. Park was recently summoned and questioned as a reference witness.

Former Director Kim has faced allegations that he was forcibly conscripted in 1983 while involved in student activism and subsequently operated as an informant under the Nokhwa Project (an ideological conversion operation). In 1989, further suspicions arose that he was specially recruited by the police for counterespionage work as a reward for informing on colleagues at the Incheon-Bucheon Democratic Laborers' Association, a labor movement organization.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Last month, former Director Kim filed a police report against an unidentified individual for leaking materials from the Defense Security Command. Agencies that had access to these materials include the National Archives of Korea, the May 18 Democratization Movement Truth Commission, and the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It has been reported that, during the investigation into how the materials were leaked to the media via an unidentified public official, the police conducted a compulsory search of Park.

The police plan to use the confiscated materials to determine the precise route of the leak, identify the public official who transferred the materials, and apply charges of official information leakage.

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