Four years sought for ex-spy chief over election meddling

Prosecutors asked a Seoul court Monday to sentence a former chief of Korea’s intelligence agency to four years in prison over an election-meddling scandal.

In an appeal hearing for ex-National Intelligence Agency (NIS) chief Won Sei-hoon, the prosecution also demanded four years of probation.

Won was indicted in 2013 on charges of interfering in the 2012 presidential election by instructing his subordinates to post political comments online in a bid to sway public opinion in favor of then ruling party contender Park Geun-hye.

The 66-year-old was sentenced to three years in prison by the Seoul High Court in early 2015. But the Supreme Court sent his case back to the court in July, saying that the evidence that led to his conviction cannot be seen as valid.

The prosecution argued that Won was guilty based on attached email files retrieved from an NIS officer’s computer that contained hundreds of Twitter IDs and directions on writing online comments.

But the top court overruled the claim citing there was no evidence to substantiate the documents were written upon Won’s order or that he was actually involved in the operations. Won headed the NIS from 2009 to 2013 under the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration.

The high court is expected to deliver its final ruling on Aug. 30.