Investigation Against Generals Listed in Slanderous Paper Continues

The prosecution body of Ministry of the National Defense, investigating the scandal surrounding the promotion of generals, summoned and investigated brigadier general Park, who is in charge of assignments to army headquarters on November 26, and brigadier general Lee, who is in charge of personnel promotion, on November 27.

Lee is a person who was designated as one of “three in the personnel bureau” in a slanderous paper related to the scandal surrounding the promotion of generals.

The military prosecution verified that besides colonel Jeong, who has a past record of drunken driving which provided a start to the investigation, and who is expected to be promoted to a one-star general next year, some contents of the personnel documents of two or three candidates for promotion to one-star generals were written incorrectly or crossed out.

It has been known that the military prosecution intensively probed whether or not the one-star general Lee received money and other valuables, whether he intentionally made false entries or crossed out personnel data.

However, Lee reportedly explained that “personnel affairs were fair. A fault of the personnel data was just an administrative error made by working-level people and was not intentional at all.”

The military prosecution is also investigating whether or not the army eliminated CCTV tapes on purpose after verifying the fact that the tapes, which were installed in the office where committee meetings for selecting candidates for promotion were held, were lost. In response to this, the army explained that “we installed the CCTV system in order to arouse their attention, but did not record it on video tape.”

Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com