S. Korea's former spy chief gets a slap on the wrist
Won Sei-hoon, the ex-head of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, was given an absurdly light three-year prison sentence Monday for interfering in the 2012 presidential election. Won had ordered NIS agents to launch an online smear campaign against opposition candidate Moon Jae-in. When state prosecutors indicted Won for overseeing this illicit operation, the whole sordid affair blew up into a huge political scandal that embarrassed President Park Geun-hye.
A Seoul appeals court handed down Won’s jail sentence as it overturned an even more ridiculous ruling by a lower court that had cleared him of election tampering. I still don’t think that the NIS’ attempt to lend a boost to Park’s presidential bid made any difference in the 2012 election. But Won’s actions were so subversive and anti-democratic that he deserved a more severe penalty than just a few years behind bars.
