Prosecutors seek NLL record

Prosecutors will descend on the National Archives today to search for a transcript of a meeting at the 2007 inter-Korean summit in which ex-president Roh Moo-hyun allegedly disavowed the de facto maritime border with North Korea during a conversation with Kim Jong-il.

Lawmakers tried to find the transcript in the National Archives in July during their probe into the summit, but it was missing. As a result, the ruling Saenuri Party filed an accusation against people involved in the 2007 inter-Korean meeting and the management of the transcript.

The prosecution is investigating whether those people destroyed or concealed the transcript.

A large-scale team of digital forensic specialists and some prosecutors will be sent today to the National Archives of Korea, the state-controlled organization that stores all top national secrets.

The Saenuri member didn’t name individuals the team suspects of destroying or concealing the transcript.

But candidates include Moon Jae-in, a former Democratic Party candidate and presidential chief of staff under the Roh administration in 2007, as well as former National Intelligence Service Chief Kim Man-bok.

Prosecutors will look into the Blue House’s former administrative management system called e-jiwon (“a garden of electronic knowledge”), invented and used under the Roh government. The system contains top state secrets designated by Roh. After his term, all the records in the system were transferred to the National Archive’s own management system, dubbed “PAMS.”

The special probe team, composed of ruling and opposition lawmakers, failed to find the transcript in the PAMS system.

The e-jiwon system, which was not used after the Roh administration, will be started up by the prosecutors to see if it contains the controversial transcript. If not, they will try to find out how it disappeared and who was responsible.

Due to the volume of the records, it is technically impossible for the prosecutors to copy all the relevant records and bring them to their office.

They are expected to continue their search at the National Archives office, which can take either a week or a month.

Analysis of CCTV footage in the National Archives and log-on records for the e-jiwon system will be included in the investigation. All of the prosecution’s work at the National Archives will be recorded by cameras.

BY KIM HEE-JIN [heejin@joongang.co.kr]