Police Agency Completes Appointment Process to Fill Information Officer Vacancy Amid 'Internal Document Leak' to Media

Seodaemun-gu, Seoul Police Agency building. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] It was reported on the 14th that the National Police Agency has completed the personnel selection process to fill the vacancies for seven police officers from the Public Safety Information Bureau who were disciplined for leaking internal information to the media.

The National Police Agency announced six police officers who will work in the Information Cooperation Division through an internal bulletin the day before. These individuals are all at the rank of Superintendent and have current or past experience working in police intelligence divisions. It is known that they were selected through an internal competition with a roughly 3 to 1 competition ratio. The National Police Agency is expected to issue personnel appointments for them as early as the following day.

Previously, after an internal investigation, the National Police Agency referred three police officers from the Information Cooperation Division of the Public Safety Information Bureau for investigation on charges of official secret leakage and transferred a total of seven officers including them. This action followed the mid-last-month disclosure of internal documents, meeting contents, and audio recordings of meeting participants from the Police Agency’s Intelligence Bureau to a media outlet.

According to reports at the time, during an internal meeting of the Police Agency’s Intelligence Bureau held on the 7th of last month, a senior superintendent-level official spoke about the need to strengthen information gathering against the National Assembly and the media in relation to the police accountability issues that arose after the Itaewon tragedy. The official also mentioned that the intelligence function was not performing its role properly and emphasized the need to strengthen 'HUMINT' (human intelligence networks).

Following the reports, the police conducted a high-intensity internal investigation, considering that the disclosure of the Intelligence Bureau’s documents and meeting contents to the media might violate laws. National Police Chief Yoon Hee-geun recently stated at a briefing, "It is a serious issue that documents were leaked in an intelligence function that requires security and discipline due to the nature of the work," and added, "Appropriate measures were necessary to establish public service discipline."