By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korea’s latest spy scandal began to unravel Sunday, after a note was found alongside the body of a 45-year-old intelligence agency employee thought to have taken his own life on a mountain lane south of Seoul a day earlier.
The handwritten message, which was publicly unveiled by Yongin police Sunday morning, insisted that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had not used imported technology to spy on members of the public.
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.
Local news agency Yonhap cited local authorities in claiming that the deceased official, surnamed Lim, had bought and run the so-called Remote Control System technology for the NIS.
He admitted in his note that he "deleted information that created misunderstandings about our counter-terrorism and covert operations on North Korea."
While aligning with the NIS’ earlier statement that its targets were the North and any Pyongyang sympathizers, Sunday’s revelation will arguably lead to more questions concerning the activities of the agency, which was previously accused of attempting to influence the 2012 presidential election.
But more answers may also be forthcoming, as ruling party lawmakers held a press briefing assuring that deleted data can be recovered.
