SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a new trial for a former spy chief convicted of directing an online campaign to smear a main opposition candidate in the 2012 presidential election.
The top court granted Won Sei-hoon a new trial after rejecting a key piece of evidence that was used to convict him in the original trial, according a court statement.
Won has been serving a 3-year sentence for ordering his underlings to post online comments that praised the then-conservative ruling party candidate and current President Park Geun-hye and slandered her chief liberal rival Moon Jae-in.
The Supreme Court said files containing work-related writings and hundreds of Twitter accounts cannot be considered evidence in the case. Prosecutors had said the Twitter accounts were used to spread the negative comments about Moon.
The spy service has said its agents were only trying to counter North Korean cyberwarfare that included messages that praised the North and spread rumors about South Korean policies.