This photo provided by the presidential office shows Kim Nam-woo, new National Intelligence Service deputy director for planning and coordination. Yonhap

President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday named a former prosecutor as a deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, his office said, filling a vacancy created earlier this week by the resignation of one of his confidants.

Kim Nam-woo, who has been working as a lawyer since leaving the prosecution in 2020, was appointed the new deputy director for planning and coordination, three days after Jo Sang-jun resigned over what the presidential office and the NIS said were health and other personal reasons.

Jo's departure sparked a flurry of speculation as to why he quit because it came only four months after he took the job and a day before he was due to attend a parliamentary audit of the spy agency.

Rumors had it that Jo had clashed with NIS Director Kim Kyou-hyun over personnel issues or that he may have been caught drunk driving or involved in an irregularity. (Yonhap)