Who’s telling truth about a Blue House server?

Tensions between the incumbent and former presidential offices escalated yesterday over the allegation that Roh Moo-hyun’s aides moved the main computer server out of the Blue House on the eve of President Lee Myung-bak’s inauguration.

The Blue House claim the move put a significant amount of sensitive national information out of reach of the incoming leader.

“The removal by Roh aides of presidential records is an undeniably illegal action,” Blue House spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said yesterday. “Out of respect for the former president, we have asked for the return of the data directly and indirectly. However, the request has been repeatedly denied.”

Lee said it’s extremely worrisome that the records Roh has are originals, not copies. “As soon as our investigation ends, the National Archives of Korea will take official action regarding this incident,” Lee said.

Quoting current administration sources, the JoongAng Ilbo reported Monday that before vacating the Blue House earlier this year, Roh’s presidential aides moved the main computer server of the presidential office to Bongha Village in South Gyeongsang, where Roh now lives. Only about one percent of the information on how Roh governed the nation was handed over to the Lee administration, Lee aides complain.

A key aide to Roh yesterday refuted the report. Kim Gyeong-su, secretary to the former president, posted a statement on Roh’s official Internet site yesterday, formally denying the JoongAng Ilbo’s report and the Blue House’s assertion. “Roh has never taken the hard disks of the Blue House’s main server,” Kim wrote. “What’s in the Bongha Village are electronic copies, and Roh took them in order to have access to the records created during his administration.”

Kim wrote that the former president will return the records, if he would be given access to the data. “The former president has a legal right to access the records, but the National Archives told him at the end of his term that such access will be technically difficult for the next year,” Kim wrote. “Even now, Roh is not given access, or a guarantee of future access.”

Kim said Roh aides and the Blue House have talked about the issue since late March. “I want to ask the Blue House why it is engaged in talks with us on one front, while feeding wrong information to the media,” Kim wrote.

The position apparently contradicts the stance of the National Archives of Korea. Jung Jin-chul, head of the National Archives, said yesterday that he has made repeated requests to collect the information from Roh, but was turned down.

Jung said he has sent official letters to Bongha Village on June 5 and 13, requesting the return of the records. The same request was also made by phone to former Roh secretary Mun Yong-wuk, Jung said.

“I was told that the matter will be discussed internally, but no reply came,” he said.

A Blue House official said yesterday that the case should be investigated by the prosecution to get at the truth. “We have evidence with 100 percent certainty to prove that originals of the electronic documents generated by the Roh Blue House are in Bongha Village now,” said the official.

By Ser Myo-ja Staff Reporter/ Seo Seung-wook JoongAng Ilbo [myoja@joongang.co.kr]