Park Sun-won: "Unaware of NIS Chief's 'Politician Arrest' Order? That's a Lie"

Cho Tae-yong, the Director of the National Intelligence Service, claimed that he never received orders from President Yoon Suk-yeol to arrest politicians in relation to the emergency martial law, but Park Seon-won, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized this as a "lie."

Park Seon-won, Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Yonhap News

On the 10th, Park appeared on CBS Radio's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show' and said, "At 8 p.m., just before the declaration of martial law, President Yoon called former NIS First Deputy Director Hong Jang-won and told him that an important order would come at 10 p.m., so he should keep his phone ready," adding, "Hong Jang-won already knew about the martial law."

Park said, "The order was to restore the authority for counterintelligence investigations and provide all manpower and funds, so cooperate with the Counterintelligence Commander and properly handle that list (the list of politicians)." He continued, "So when he called the Counterintelligence Commander, he was given the full list and was told to start with location tracking. On the day of the martial law declaration, at 11:30 p.m., (former First Deputy Director Hong) had a private report to Cho Tae-ung."

He identified former Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyung as the drafter of the proclamation draft. He said, "As far as I know, Yeo In-hyung's team wrote the draft proclamation. He must have received verbal orders from former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, but judging by the situation, at least all commanders gave direct orders. President Yoon personally called the Special Forces Commander and the Capital Defense Command Commander who were deployed on site, and also called Yeo In-hyung directly. Especially since Yeo In-hyung is a junior alumnus of Chung-Ang High School, I believe he gave phone instructions before the martial law started."

Furthermore, Park emphasized the need to speed up securing evidence, expressing concern over potential evidence destruction. He pointed out, "Most of the evidence has probably already been destroyed. For example, Yeo In-hyung, the Counterintelligence Commander, took notes during the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on Saturday (December 7) about orders to 'arrest someone,' but now he claims to remember nothing and even lies about not knowing where he put those notes."