Indictment of former NIS deputy director — once hailed as a whistleblower — details two main charges: receiving martial law orders from Yoon and passing them down through subordinate divisions

Special prosecutor lists five specific directives allegedly issued to subordinate units, including building a contact channel with the Korean National Police Agency

Hong's side argues that if he had genuinely intended to carry out the orders, his immediate dismissal would be inexplicable

Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, arrives at the office of the second comprehensive special prosecutor's team led by Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, on June 26 to be questioned as a suspect in connection with allegations that he relayed messages justifying martial law. [Yonhap]
Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, arrives at the office of the second comprehensive special prosecutor's team led by Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, on June 26 to be questioned as a suspect in connection with allegations that he relayed messages justifying martial law. [Yonhap]

The second comprehensive special prosecutor's team led by Special Prosecutor Kwon Chang-young spent six months investigating allegations left unresolved after three earlier special counsel probes into insurrection, the first lady Kim Keon Hee and the Marine Corps death case. It has now indicted former National Intelligence Service First Deputy Director Hong Jang-won on insurrection-related charges — and the indictment includes an allegation that he ordered subordinate units to monitor unusual public opinion related to martial law, including domestic media coverage, online comments and social media posts.

According to the indictment obtained Wednesday, the special prosecutor's team identified two main categories of criminal conduct attributed to Hong: receiving orders to carry out martial law from former President Yoon Suk Yeol and former NIS Director Jo Tae-yong, and then sequentially passing those orders down to subordinate unit heads through an internal meeting.

On the second charge — the directives to subordinate units — the special prosecutor's team broke the allegations into five specific acts. Prosecutors determined that Hong issued sequential orders to subordinate divisions covering: building a contact-point channel with the Korean National Police Agency and dispatching staff to the agency's situation room; directing overseas-stationed personnel to gather foreign reactions to the martial law declaration, including from the US administration; ordering the cognitive-warfare response unit and the open-source intelligence unit to collect martial law-related information; directing the counterintelligence unit to establish a contact-point channel with the Defense Counterintelligence Command and conduct close surveillance of pro-North Korea leftist groups; and instructing relevant units to brief US intelligence partner agencies on the background of the martial law declaration.

The indictment states that at around 10:53 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2024 — shortly after former President Yoon declared emergency martial law — Hong received a call from Yoon on a secure line. Yoon allegedly told him: "Did you see it? The emergency martial law declaration. Use this opportunity to round them all up, clean everything up. I'll give the NIS counterintelligence authority too, so for now help and support the Defense Counterintelligence Command. Whatever it takes — money, manpower — give unconditional support."

The special prosecutor's team also determined that Hong, during a phone call with former Defense Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyeong, received a request — "The arrest teams are out, but we cannot confirm the locations of the targets. Please help us locate them" — and wrote down a list of arrest targets as Yeo dictated it. Hong then attended a "political appointee countermeasures meeting" chaired by former NIS Director Jo, where prosecutors say Jo told him: "What we discussed and deliberated during the Ulchi CPX exercises — now seems like the time to do it."

The indictment states that at a subordinate unit heads meeting, Hong directed the head of the cognitive-warfare response unit and the head of the open-source intelligence unit to collect "information on whether distorted or exaggerated claims related to martial law were spreading on social media, and to gather unusual public opinion on martial law from domestic media, online comments and SNS." Prosecutors noted that Hong pressed ahead with the directive even after some staff members objected.

According to the special prosecutor's team, the open-source intelligence unit and the cognitive-warfare unit — acting on Hong's orders — monitored domestic and international online communities and social media for reactions to the emergency martial law declaration. After the National Assembly passed a resolution lifting martial law, the units compiled their findings into a report titled "Trends in fake news dissemination and false incitement related to emergency martial law" and distributed it to Hong, his aide and others at around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024.

The indictment also states that Hong directed the head of the counterterrorism unit to establish a direct contact channel between the NIS security division and the Korean National Police Agency, to work with the agency and regional police on ways the security division could provide support, and to prioritize preventing incidents — including by dispatching staff to the police agency's situation room.

Hong also allegedly told the head of the counterintelligence unit that economic counterintelligence and defense industry matters were of little importance at that moment and that the focus should be on the martial law situation, and ordered the unit to establish a contact-point channel with the Defense Counterintelligence Command. When the counterintelligence unit head reported that the unit would conduct close surveillance of pro-North Korea leftist groups and other suspicious activity, Hong approved the plan, prosecutors determined.

The special prosecutor's team determined that subordinate divisions under the counterintelligence unit, acting on orders from Hong and the counterintelligence unit head, produced a series of documents on how to carry out operations under martial law and distributed them to their respective sub-units and strategy offices: a document titled "Plan for advancing counterintelligence operations under emergency martial law" at around 1:45 a.m. on Dec. 4; a document titled "Direction for key operations of sub-units under emergency martial law" at around 1:48 a.m.; and a document titled "Plan for advancing sub-unit operations under a national emergency" at around 2:47 a.m.

The indictment further states that Hong directed the head of the overseas analysis unit to draft a background explanation of the martial law declaration and pass it to the overseas collection unit, and told the head of the overseas collection unit to relay the background to overseas stations so they could understand the situation, and to call US intelligence partner agency contacts in South Korea and ask them not to be alarmed.

Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service. [Yonhap]
Hong Jang-won, former first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service. [Yonhap]

Hong's legal team pushed back on the charges, saying the indictment "simply copied a staff member's diary — a hearsay document — verbatim, and contains nothing about whether Hong actually carried out former President Yoon's orders." The team added: "They are saying that drafting a martial law manual report constitutes insurrection. The allegation that he instructed someone to deliver a martial law justification message to the CIA — which had been a major point of contention — was left out."

Hong's side has consistently maintained that the special prosecutor's team selectively picked only unfavorable content when building its investigation and indictment, relying on documents from working-level meetings that Hong did not attend — including records labeled "Results of the early-morning meeting" and "241204 meeting minutes" — as its evidentiary basis. The defense has argued that because two documents covering the same meeting contain contradictory accounts, neither has evidentiary value.

"If Hong had intended to carry out former President Yoon's orders and had passed related instructions at the subordinate unit heads meeting, it would make no sense that Yoon immediately dismissed him — unlike other political appointees," Hong's legal team said.

On Monday, the special prosecutor's team concluded its six-month investigation and held a final briefing, announcing that it had indicted former President Yoon on charges of abuse of authority in connection with the martial law justification message allegations, and had also referred NIS officials including Hong to trial. The team indicted former NIS Director Jo Tae-yong, Hong, former Second Deputy Director Hwang Won-jin and former Planning and Coordination Office Director Kim Nam-woo — all political appointees — without seeking their detention.

Hong had been regarded as a whistleblower after he revealed before the Constitutional Court and elsewhere that former President Yoon had ordered him to "round them all up," but the special prosecutor's team indicted him on charges of involvement in the insurrection. At the final briefing, the team said of Hong's indictment: "Our purpose was to establish what the NIS as an organization did at the time of the martial law declaration. It would be a misunderstanding to think we were targeting any specific individual."


bell@heraldcorp.com