Koreans caught spying in Aust: report
Date May 2, 2013 - 3:41AM
AAP
South Korea has been accused of conducting economic espionage in Australia with a senior public servant losing his job for allegedly disclosing sensitive trade information.
Fairfax reports that previously suppressed information released by the Federal Court revealed South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) was trying to "cultivate Australian officials and public servants to obtain sensitive information" on trade negotiations between the two countries.
Fairfax said ASIO had alleged that Yeon Kim, a senior agricultural trade specialist, was involved in "foreign interference" by the Korean spies.
Dr Kim has lost his job with the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.
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No South Korean spies were expelled despite ASIO describing their actions as "inappropriate activities" harmful to Australia's interests.
Fairfax said that in an effort to maintain good relations, ASIO took legal action to try to prevent public disclosure of the incident and protect the identities of the Korean agents.
In 2010, ASIO learnt that Dr Kim had been meeting a South Korean diplomat who was declared to the Australian government as an NIS liaison officer.
Dr Kim was the principal author of an ABARES study of the Korean beef market and had participated in the third round of the Australia-South Korea free trade agreement negotiations in late 2009.
Dr Kim was interviewed by ASIO officers in October 2010.
Some 11 months later ASIO director-general David Irvine issued an adverse security assessment of Dr Kim "after finding that he had had contact with successive NIS officers who he had not reported, as required by Australian government policy".
© 2013 AAP
