2013 South Korean sabotage plot

[1][2][3] After further investigation, on 26 September 2013, South Korean prosecutors indicted Lee Seok-ki on charges that he was plotting a pro-North Korea rebellion to overthrow the government, saying his plan posed a "grave" national security threat.

[11] On 3 November 2014, following Lee's initial conviction, the government of President Park Geun-hye asked the Constitutional Court of South Korea to disband the UPP.

NIS had acquired court approvals for wiretapping and had been collecting a wide range of evidence by closely monitoring the secret meetings of Lee Seok-ki and his colleagues.

[17] On 24 September 2013, the NIS additionally searched and seized the office of Ahn So-hee, a member of Paju city council, for violating the National Security Act.

[15] Lee Seok-ki was said to appear at 6:58 am, 28 August at his studio apartment at Mapo-gu, the western part of Seoul, disguised and wearing a cap, and ran away in a cab as soon as he found his place was being searched by investigators.

Investigators allegedly seized 57 letters of vowing loyalty to Lee Seok-ki, tap detection equipment, and 91 million won worth of bank notes (approx.

[22] On 2 September 2013, South Korea's National Assembly received the government's arrest motion for lawmaker Lee Seok-ki, signed by President Park Geun-hye.

Kang Chang-hee, the speaker of the National Assembly, submitted the proposal of opening plenary session from 2 September to 10 December and put it to a vote, which was the preliminary procedure to pass the arrest motion.

Seven abstainers, all of whom were from the opposition Democratic Party, were Moon Jae-in, Lee In-young, Kim Yong-ik, Do Jong-hwan, Yu Sung-yeop, Eun Soo-mi, and Lim Soo-kyung.

[24] Prior to the National Assembly's vote, Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-an attended the session and explained the reasons of filing the arrest motion against Lee.

He plotted a pro-North rebellion by instigating the RO members to make physical and military preparation for war between North and South Korea, and by drawing up riot plans such as destroying the nation's infrastructure.

According to Minister Hwang, the Prosecutor's Office made a decision that Lee Seok-ki and his followers' crime is a clear danger and defiance to the free democratic basic order of the Republic of Korea, after a close analysis of the evidence.

[25] Lee Seok-ki allegedly called on his colleagues to prepare to conduct a "speedy war" against the South Korean government should Pyongyang issue an order to attack, according to a transcript of his address during their secret meeting in May 2013.

Lee, of the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party, was accused of forming an underground pro-North Korean organization and plotting and instigating an armed revolt.

Lee also allegedly told the attendants of his supporters' rally in March 2012 that the National Assembly would become the "frontline for class strife," and that the current political environment would lead to separation of "revolutionary and anti-revolutionary forces.

[27] The RO group allegedly discussed details of how to make preparations to strike the South Korean government and the U.S. military, such as by incapacitating internet networks and infrastructure for oil and gas supplies and other major logistical facilities in the Seoul area.

[29] In March 2013, when tension rose in Korean peninsula after North Korea vowed to nullify the armistice agreement, Lee Seok-ki allegedly issued "three major guidelines of preparing war" for the members of RO, the insurgent group.

[31] On 5 April 2013, at the office of Suwon Medical Cooperation, Hong Soon-seok and Han Dong-geun had a secret meeting with the RO "cell" members, according to Lee Seok-ki's prior order.

[32] Lee Seok-ki requested over 80 documents from the government including confidential national defense materials related to the American and the South Korean armed forces.

He wanted information on who has operational control in times of crisis on the Korean Peninsula and cooperation among the armed forces of South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

Especially the fact that Kim Keun-rae (a Gyeonggi provincial vice chairman of the UPP), Jo Yang-won (the representative of Social Trend Institute), and other RO members had visited North Korea individually or in a group, was presented as strong circumstantial evidence.

[36] On 26 September 2013, South Korean prosecutors indicted Lee Seok-ki, a left-wing lawmaker, on charges that he was plotting a pro-North Korea rebellion to overthrow the government, saying his plan posed a "grave" national security threat.

Senior prosecutor Kim Soo-nam told a news conference that Lee and his colleagues specifically brought up possible targets to attack, including a telecommunications facility in Seoul, during the May meeting, which drew 130 people.

"It's an incident that an underground revolutionary organization...systemically and collectively plotted to overthrow a free democracy and posed a grave threat to" South Korea's national security, Kim said.

He made a lecture to 20 people from the CNP Group, which was responsible for the finance and the strategy of the RO, that they should resolve to make ideological and physical preparation; strengthen security against white terror and preventive custody; and wage an unconventional partisan war in the rear.

In the "education meeting" level, the RO candidates learn the basic communist ideology with text books like "the Rewritten Modern History of Korea", in order to become "Juche" (the North Korean philosophy of communism) activists.

The core figure of the PDRP was Kim Young-hwan who wrote the book "Iron Letters" widely known as a textbook of "Juche", the North Korean communist ideology, in the 1980s.

Lee Seok-ki also played an important role in the foundation of PDRP as by participating in the inaugural ceremony and actively supporting the party's doctrine "Let's win the people's independence under the ideological guidance of 'Juche', the North Korean communism."

[15][21] On 28 August 2013, Lee Seok-ki allegedly took a taxi and ran away in disguise when he found the investigators searching and seizing his place, according to the report of Channel A, a South Korean TV network.

And about 200 members of the UPP's regional committee crowded in front of the National Assembly's building and collided with security guards there shouting "Stop approving the arrest motion for Lee.