NIS agent gets prison time for framing defector

A Seoul court sentenced Tuesday a mid-ranking state intelligence agent to two and a half years in prison for instructing other agents to forge documents to frame a North Korean defector as a spy.

The 48-year-old National Intelligence Service (NIS) agent, surnamed Kim, was convicted of instructing other agents to fabricate the Chinese immigration records of Yoo Woo-seong, a 34-year-old defector who was then an employee of the Seoul municipal government, to charge him with espionage.

“Kim routinely made excuses before the judges and asked his collaborators to give false testimonies to make him appear innocent,” the Seoul Central District Court said in a ruling. [Yonhap]

Why would an NIS agent do this? My best guess, based on this report, is that the investigator really believed Yoo was guilty, couldn’t get the evidence the right way, and then decided to fabricate the missing pieces. Obviously, that excuses nothing.