Former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon under the Park Geun-hye administration will face a retrial for manipulating the timeline of his communication with the former president on the day of the Sewol ferry sinking on April 16, 2014.

The Supreme Court on Friday remanded a lower court's ruling of a suspended one-year prison sentence for Kim, intending an acquittal.

The ex-chief presidential aide and former National Security Adviser Kim Jang-soo were indicted for submitting to parliament a wrong timeline of the communication.

The court deemed that Kim's statement to parliament that the presidential office briefed Park on the ferry disaster every 20 to 30 minutes by phone was not false as it is in line with objective reports.

It said Kim's statement that he had believed Park was well aware of the situation at the time is only a personal opinion and that details are the same as those of his testimony during a parliamentary session.

The top court, meanwhile, upheld a lower court's acquittal of the former national security adviser.