Go to contents

Full General Shin Il-soon Arrested

Posted May. 09, 2004 20:38,   

한국어

57-year-old army full General, Shin Il-soon, who was in charge of the deputy commander seat of the Korea-US Joint Forces Command, has been arrested by an inspection team of the Ministry of National Defense under suspicion of vocational embezzlement at around 11:45 a.m. on May 8.

It was the first time an army full general who is in active service has been arrested due to an individual corruption case since the initiation of the Korean Armed Forces.

The military inspection body requested a warrant of arrest from the higher military court of the Ministry of National Defense at around 8:40 p.m. on this day, and the court has issued the warrant after going through the formalities of authorization by the Defense Minister, Cho Young-gil, and a 3-hour-long practical inspection of the warrant.

According to the inspection body, General Shin misappropriated a total of 125 million won worth of government money, such as the official deposit of the 3rd Army Corps, to which he had been belonged for a number of years from November 1999, and the consolatory funds offered by the financial world to the Corps, and spent it on private consumption such as expenses for his individual congratulations and condolences, gifts, dinner with other generals, and his family’s leisure activities. In addition, during his tenure as deputy commander of the Korea-US Joint Forces Command, he misused about 33 million won worth of official money to spend on expenses for playing golf with relevant U.S. and Korean military forces’ high-level officials.

The accused acknowledged the charges against him by stating they were “unreasonable,” but that as for every accusation he is being suspected of, he “was not aware of it violating any law or decree because it was a business expenditure.” He added, “I will heartily receive disciplinary treatment in order to prevent any discouragement to our forces, if it were to be proved as an offense of law.”

General Shin is now being detained at a specially prepared facility by the military prosecution, not at a typical military detention barracks.



Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com