Korean spy charged with forging Chinese files attempts suicide

By I. ALLEN and J. FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A South Korean intelligence officer, who was charged earlier this month with deliberately forging Chinese government documents, tried to kill himself inside a car on Sunday, according to local media. The officer, identified in reports only by his last name, Kwon, was fingered last week by South Korean media as the source of a set of documents used in a court case against a man accused of spying for North Korea. Yoo Woo-sung, a prominent North Korean defector living in the South, was arrested last year on charges of espionage. Government prosecutors accused Yoo of collecting information on at least 200 North Korean defectors living in the South while working for the Seoul city government. The prosecution produced a number of Chinese transit documents showing that Yoo had entered North Korea repeatedly from China, ostensibly in order to transport information to his handlers in Pyongyang. However, in a dramatic turn of events, the case against Yoo collapsed in August of 2013; this was followed by allegations that some of the documents presented to the court by the prosecutors had been forged. It now appears that the forged documents, which were travel records allegedly issued by the Chinese government, had been given to the prosecution by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). Court documents surfaced last week identifying Kwon (named initially as ‘Kim’) as one of the sources of the forged documents. Kwon fervently denied the accusations, claiming that he too had been duped by a Chinese asset who gave him the forms. He also argued that that the asset was probably working for Chinese intelligence. On Sunday, however, Kwon apparently tried to kill himself at his home in a suburb of Seoul. The intelligence officer was reportedly found unconscious inside his car by first responders who rushed to the scene following a telephone call by a member of the public. One fire department official told South Korean media that several clues at the scene pointed to “an attempt at carbon monoxide poisoning”. Early on Monday, a spokesperson for the NIS confirmed that Kwon did try to end his life and is now recovering in hospital. The Wall Street Journal notes that Kwon’s suicide attempt is the second such case involving NIS this month. The paper says that another NIS officer was hospitalized earlier in March after he tried to kill himself. There is no proof, however, that the two suicide attempts are in any way linked.