A notebook belonging to a former military intelligence commander who was arrested in the martial law investigation contained details about plans to "provoke North Korea into an attack" at the de facto inter-Korean sea border, police said Monday.
The Korean National Police Agency’s National Office of Investigation told reporters the notes, reading “provoke North Korea into an attack at the Northern Limit Line” and “block the National Assembly” along with memos listing a number of lawmakers, journalists, prosecutors and government officials as individuals to be “collected," were found at the residence of former Defense Intelligence Commander Noh Sang-won on Friday.
The memo detailed how the list of individuals will be accommodated and handled as well.
The NOI is a part of a joint investigation team with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials and the Criminal Investigation Command of the Defense Ministry to probe Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law case.
Police did not specify the names of the individuals mentioned and were not able to confirm when the memos were written.
But, the notes partly aligned with statements made by several opposition party lawmakers, claiming that Yoon and then-Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun tried to provoke North Korea by striking trash balloons and with a drone deployment to Pyongyang.
Whether such attempts were carried out to provoke North Korea is yet to be confirmed, according to the police.
Noh, who was dishonorably discharged in 2018 over a sexual harassment case and opened a fortunetelling business at his home in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, is a confidant of Kim.
He is accused of organizing a meeting with top military officials, including the former head of the Defense Intelligence Command, Moon Sang-ho, at an Ansan-based burger franchise to dole out orders in preparation for the imposition of martial law.
Noh’s personal notebook was seized when police raided his residence Friday after he was taken into police custody under an emergency arrest on Dec. 15.
Police told reporters that the 60- to 70-page notebook contained martial law-related content, but anything connected to the specific martial law decree was not found.
Meanwhile, police seized the president’s phone records in a separate investigation after requesting court-issued warrants to access his private communications on Sunday.
Though details of the conversations have not been revealed, the smartphone was reportedly identified as Yoon’s personal phone instead of a secure telephone.
The joint body continues to analyze Yoon's call history to find any critical “smoking gun” evidence in his botched declaration of martial law.
sj_lee@heraldcorp.com
