Prosecutors have formally opened investigations into allegations that two former state spy agency chiefs had violated the National Intelligence Service(NIS) Act during the previous Moon Jae-in administration.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Thursday allocated the cases of former NIS directors Suh Hoon and Park Jie-won to two separate public investigative divisions. The NIS under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration had earlier filed complaints against Suh and Park.

Park is accused of deleting intelligence reports related to the killing of a fisheries official by the North Korean military near the western maritime boundary in 2020 without authorization.

The unit assigned to handle Park's case is probing what led the Moon administration to conclude that the official had attempted to defect to the North and whether it had responded appropriately to the incident.

Suh is suspected of abruptly terminating a joint government investigation into two North Korean sailors who allegedly killed 16 fellow crew members before crossing the border in 2019.

Although the two men had expressed their intent to defect to South Korea, the Moon government repatriated them to the North through Panmunjeom.