Prosecutors on Sunday questioned a former deputy director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) allegedly involved in the spy agency's illegal surveillance of officials and civilians. 


Choi Yun-su, who was in charge of information gathering of domestic affairs between February 2016 and June 2017, appeared at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in the morning. 

He was the supervisor of Choo Myeong-ho, who was arrested on Nov. 3 for illegally spying on public servants, activists and celebrities deemed critical of the conservative government of then-President Park Geun-hye, who was ousted in March for corruption. 

Choo allegedly reported his team's secretive operations to Woo Byeong-woo, then presidential secretary for civil affairs. Choi, a former senior prosecutor, is suspected of involvement of surveillance activities, including their monitoring of a special investigator who was probing Woo over allegations of abuse of power.

Prosecutors said later they are also looking into suspicions that the three kept in contact through an incumbent senior prosecutor in a regional district office to keep their story straight. 

They have discovered that the prosecutor, identified by only his last name Kim, has talked either directly to the three suspects or their lawyers many times since the probe began, raising suspicions that he worked as a kind of a middleman who delivered their messages. 

Kim admitted to having made the phone calls to them, but denied they had anything to do with destroying evidence.

The prosecution plans to summon Woo soon. 

It is part of a series of probes into alleged government misdeeds of the past conservative administrations, which the opposition parties label "political retribution." (Yonhap)