A SENIOR Korean military commander has been arrested on suspicion of leaking the South’s military defence plans to Kim Jong-il’s regime.
The major general, identified only as Kim, arrested by military authorities yesterday, faces charges of supplying confidential information to North Korea.
The information he is alleged to have leaked includes parts of the detailed battle plan for US and South Korean forces in the event of a new Korean conflict.
The plan is modified every one or two years, since the first version was created in 1974. Kim is suspected of leaking parts of the plan to a rogue former South Korean spy between 2005 and 2007.
South Korean media reports describe the plan as having five phases: rapid deployment of extra US forces in Korea, strategic bombing of North Korean targets, marching on the North, establishing military control over the North, and eventually unifying the two Koreas.
According to the South’s JoongAng Daily, Kim is reported to have leaked the information to a former South Korean agent, Park Chae-seo, recently arrested on charges of giving security information to North Korea.
The paper said the 56-year-old had worked for South Korea’s Agency for National Security Planning, the predecessor of the National Intelligence Service, and he had spied on North Korea under the codename of Black Venus until his cover was blown in 1998.
Kim and Park were alumni of the same military academy and close friends, sources said.
Kim told investigators he did not know Park was working for North Korea, a military official said. He denied giving Park information that was not publicly available.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office and the National Intelligence Service arrested Park last week for providing military secrets to North Korea in return for money.
Authorities are believed to be pursuing five more suspects over the case, although none is a serving military officer.
The South periodically detains people accused of spying for its communist neighbour.
A female North Korean spy arrested last month used sex to secure sensitive information on Seoul’s subway system, prosecutors have said. In another case, a female North Korean spy was arrested and jailed for five years in 2008. She had admitted having sex with a South Korean army officer to secure secret information.
News of the latest arrest came as the team of investigators probing the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan – which has been blamed on North Korea – were en route to New York to give their findings to the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council.
The 10-member team was expected to show video clips of the ship’s salvage and answer questions from representatives at UN headquarters yesterday.
The team is led by Yoon Duk-yong, professor emeritus at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Lieutenant General Park Jung-yi of Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the briefing had been requested by the council and it would be attended by foreign experts investigating the ship’s sinking, which claimed the lives of 46 South Korean sailors, in the Yellow Sea near the marine border between the two countries.
A Russian navy investigation of the March 26 sinking of the vessel is believed to have found there was insufficient evidence to tie the incident to the North.
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