Former military officials under probe

[Anchor]

The Board of Audit and Inspection has referred six former military officials to the prosecution for their involvement in the withdrawal of guard posts, GP, during the September 19 military agreement in 2018.

They are suspected of failing to properly verify that the North did not adequately destroy the GPs.

Reporter Shin Ji-hye has the details.

[Report]

According to the September 19 military agreement, both South and North Korea destroyed ten frontline observation posts, GPs, each.

Afterward, soldiers from both sides verified whether the GPs were properly dismantled.

At that time, our government stated that all North Korean GPs had been rendered 'non-operational'.

[Suh Wook/Then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Dec. 2018: "The GPs withdrawn by the North in this demonstration have been assessed as incapable of performing their mission as observation posts…."]

However, North Korea, which declared the abrogation of the September 19 agreement in November 2023, quickly restored the GPs that were said to be in a 'non-operational state'.

This raised suspicions that "our verification in the past was inadequate."

Since March of last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection has been investigating these suspicions and referred six former military officials to the prosecution at the end of last month.

They are reported to include former Defense Ministers Jeong Kyeong-doo and Suh Wook, as well as officials responsible for North Korea-related tasks at the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Board of Audit and Inspection determined that they are suspected of preparing official documents containing conclusions that differ from the facts without properly verifying the North's GP facilities.

It is also reported that the Board secured internal reports indicating that if GPs were removed on the same scale as North Korea, gaps in surveillance operation would be a concern, yet the submitted documents stated that GPs were withdrawn equally from both sides.

The Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office, which has taken over the case, is expected to begin its investigation soon after receiving the materials from the Board of Audit and Inspection.

The Board is expected to announce the final audit results within a month or two.

This is KBS News Shin Ji-hye.