By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Thursday criticized two government agencies for monitoring all the personal assets of its presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak and his family members.
It said it will seek the parliamentary appointment of an independent counsel to look into the alleged misconduct of the National Tax Service (NTS) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
The reaction came out after a report that the state agencies have looked into all property trading records of the former Seoul mayor and his family members for the past few years.
Lee said, ``Such a surveillance should not have happened and should not take place again in the future.''
He said the incident is a reflection that this country is based on an immature political culture, given that the tax agency monitored wealth of the opposition party nominee for arguably political purposes.
Lee urged the prosecution to find the person behind the smear politics designed to discredit him.
The GNP characterized the incident as political surveillance against the opposition party's leading presidential nominee.
The prosecution concluded its investigation in mid-August as it said it could not find any evidence that Lee and his family members had violated laws in property trading. It also concluded that it has not found any evidence the two state agencies broke the law in their monitoring of personal wealth of the former Seoul mayor and his family members.
But the prosecution said Wednesday it has begun to reinvestigate the case, apparently at the prodding of the GNP.
``Our investigation is focused on the possible leakage of the information regarding Lee's real estate transactions. So far we have not found any evidence supporting that these agencies are associated with illegal activities,'' said a prosecutor in charge of the case.
Rep. Na Kyung-won, however, urged the prosecution to name the one responsible for the surveillance of the opposition presidential nominee and his family members. She said without instruction from above, the agencies would not have combed through Lee's personal wealth.