South Korea arrests official for alleged leak of overseas spies list

A military court issued a warrant to arrest the official Tuesday, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry declined to give further details, including the identity of the official, citing an ongoing investigation. The official was taken into custody Tuesday, lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party said after the military briefed lawmakers on the matter in a closed-door session.

The official at the Korea Defence Intelligence Command is suspected of leaking what could be thousands of pieces of intelligence to a Chinese national thought to be an agent for North Korea, South Korea’s Yonhap News agency said, without identifying the source of the information.

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The Chinese embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

The incident likely deals a blow to South Korea’s ability to keep an eye on its secretive North Korean neighbour and may dent intelligence relations with its partners the US and Japan as they step up trilateral cooperation to take on security challenges in the region.

The military learned of the incident in June after receiving a report from other intelligence authorities, Lee told reporters after the parliamentary session. The military has since relieved the official of duties, called in all of its overseas agents and banned overseas travel for work, he said.

It was not immediately clear when the leak took place.

“One thing for certain is that it was not a hacking incident,” lawmaker Park Sun-won of the opposition Democratic Party, another lawmaker briefed by the command, said. The military official denied the intelligence leak, claiming a laptop was hacked, Yonhap reported.

Officials at