The main opposition party chief on Wednesday urged President Park Geun-hye to apologize over a guilty verdict handed down to the former head of the nation’s spy agency, holding her responsible for the high profile case which a court acknowledged that the state interfered in the previous presidential election.

The remark came two days after a Seoul appellate court sentenced the former national intelligence chief Won Sei-hoon to three years in prison for violating state intelligence and election law.

“It is confirmed that the National Intelligence Service had orchestrated interfering (in the election),” said Rep. Moon Jae-in, chairman of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, at the party’s supreme council meeting.

“President Park should offer an apology, though it happened during the Lee Myung-bak administration,” he said. Lee is Park’s predecessor.

The Seoul High court ruled that Won, who headed the spy agency between 2009 and 2013, meddled in the 2012 presidential election by ordering staff to make political posting online to sway public opinion, overturning a lower court’s decision that acquitted him of election meddling charges. Moon was the presidential candidate for the main opposition party in the election.

The NPAD chair intensified criticism of Park. He said Park, then Saenuri candidate, had slandered him when the case emerged during the election campaign period and accused her of interfering in the prosecution’s investigation into the case. Moon came under the political spotlight recently after he rose to the chairmanship of the party on Sunday.

The opposition leader also urged the president to carry out a massive reform of NIS to prevent the agency from interfering in political affairs. Under the law, the agency should remain politically neutral.

The president has maintained silence over the ruling so far, though she denied her connection with the NIS regarding the case in 2013.

By Cho Chung-un(christory@heraldcorp.com)