JEJU, South Korea — In a political blow to President Park Geun-hye, a South Korean appeals court on Monday convicted a former government intelligence chief on charges of intervening in the 2012 vote that elected her president.
The former intelligence chief, Won Sei-hoon, was arrested at the Seoul High Court and taken to jail after the court sentenced him to three years in prison.
The court did not comment on whether Mr. Won’s intervention helped Ms. Park get elected. But it said that agents from the government’s National Intelligence Service, under Mr. Won’s instruction, began an online smear campaign against Ms. Park’s political rivals ahead of the December 2012 vote, often depicting the rivals as North Korean sympathizers.
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On Twitter, the agents called Ms. Park “the only answer” to North Korean threats, praising her “solid and right views on national security,” the court said. In contrast, they derided Mr. Moon as “an ex-convict” for being arrested for protesting the military dictatorship in the 1970s. They also called him “childish” and said that there was “zero chance” he would carry out campaign promises.
The intelligence agency was created to spy on North Korea, which is still technically at war with the South. But the agency has been repeatedly accused of meddling in domestic politics and of being used as a political tool by sitting presidents.
