Former chiefs of S.Korean cyber command charged with political intervention

Two former chiefs of South Korean cyber command were charged with being involved in posting political comments online before the presidential election and general election in 2012, Seoul's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry's investigation team announced a final conclusion on its months-long probe into the alleged political intervention, saying officials of the cyber command's psychological warfare team posted comments in favor of or against some political parties and politicians"beyond the bound of normal operations."

The two former cyber command chiefs failed to take proper actions though they were notified of such operations in violation of the military criminal act, which bans a political intervention, the ministry said.

A total of 21 former and current officials of the cyber command, including the two chiefs, faced criminal charges, higher than 10 officials subject to the charges when the interim investigation result was unveiled in December last year.

The cyber command has posted, since its creation in January 2010, nearly 800,000 comments in the cyberspace, among which some 7,100 comments favored or went against certain political parties or politicians.

The investigation team, however, noted there were no organized attempts found to interfere with the presidential election in connection with other government agencies such as the spy agency.

South Korea was rattled last year by allegations that the cyber command and the intelligence agency attempted to intervene in the 2012 presidential election by posting online comments in favor of then ruling party candidate and now President Park Geun-hye and against her archrival Moon Jae-in, candidate for the main opposition party.

Then Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, who now serves as the national security adviser to President Park, was found not to be notified about the case at that time, the probe result showed. Enditem