[News Today] MARTIAL LAW TROOPS TARGETED NEC

[LEAD]
It has been revealed that the martial law troops first targeted the National Election Commission immediately after the President declared martial law on the 3rd. Questions were raised as to why they went to the Election Commission before the National Assembly. Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun explained that it was to investigate the ongoing 'election rigging allegation' following the last general election.

[REPORT]
Tuesday night when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law.

Before martial law troops reached the National Assembly, some soldiers first stormed into the National Election Commission.

At around 10:30 p.m., an advance group of a dozen troops went into the NEC located in Gwacheon, Gyeonggido Province and confiscated the mobile phones of five officials there including those on night shift.

Kim Yong-bin / Secretary general, Nat'l Election Commission
The 100 or so troops mobilized later only patrolled the 1st floor lobby and their total occupation time was 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Then, over a hundred troops were mobilized at the building at around 12:30 a.m.

While this was happening, troops were deployed to the NEC training institute in Suwon and an opinion poll deliberations committee in Seoul's Gwanak-gu district.

There was much speculation as to why such a large number of troops infiltrated the election watchdog but even the martial law commander at the time did not know the reason.

Ahn Gyu-back / Defense Committee(DP)
Is there a particular reason why the NEC was selected?

Park An-su / Ex-Martial Law Commander
I don't know about that.

In an interview via text message with KBS, former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, the chief commander of troops at the time, said it was necessary to secure systems and facilities to determine whether an investigation was warranted regarding election rigging allegations.

In other words, the deployment was aimed at determining whether an investigation was necessary into the so-called rigged election conspiracy voiced by some conservative groups in the wake of the last general election.

It was suspected that during their stay, the troops occupied the NEC's intelligence management department which oversees election-related data, but the commission denied that speculation.

Lee Hae-sik / Public Administration and Security Committee(DP)
They allegedly went through computer servers and took things away. Did you receive any reports on this matter?

Kim Yong-bin / Secretary general, Nat'l Election Commission
We were told the troops didn't take any particular measures and only monitored night shift workers in line with martial law decree.

Various probes in the coming days into the activity of the martial law troops are expected to verify why they were at the NEC in the first place and whether they took away election data.