Seoul’s spy agency has reportedly assessed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un does not appear to have ordered the killing of a South Korean fisheries ministry official. 

According to multiple members of the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee, National Intelligence Service(NIS) Director Park Jie-won shared the assessment during a closed-door meeting with the committee members on Friday. 

Park said North Korean authorities do not appear to have reported to Kim the discovery of the civilian nor received an order from him to kill the South Korean, and speculated that the order could have been made by a commander-level official overseeing the respective area. 

He said special intelligence acquired by the South did not point to Kim either.  

The intelligence agency's evaluation came after the North Korean leader conveyed his stance on the matter to the South, apologizing for the shooting death of the South Korean fisheries official who was apparently found adrift on the West Sea earlier this week near North Korea's coast. 

Noting the possibility that the body of the official may still be adrift in the West Sea, the spy chief pledged to demand North Korea to conduct a search and cooperate with South Korea’s investigation into the incident. The search operation will also be held in the South, he added. South Korea previously announced that North Korea appears to have incinerated the corpse. But in its letter sent on Friday, the North denied committing such an act. 

Regarding controversy over whether the South Korean civilian expressed his intent to defect to the North as the South Korean Defense Ministry announced, Park attributed the ministry’s assessment to special intelligence which pointed in that direction.  

Regarding the absence of such information in the North Korean letter, Park said he will discuss the matter during a National Security Council meeting later in the day to precisely grasp the situation.