Korea navy lieutenant arrested over leaking classified to China

A South Korean navy lieutenant commander was nabbed on Friday over charge of leaking confidential information to China, the military prosecution revealed, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Official charges facing the lieutenant commander are the violation of the Military Secret Protection Act as well as the Military Criminal Act, the official from the Prosecutors Office Ministry of National Defense said on condition of anonymity.

No North Korean involvement has been detected in the case yet, he noted.

Through a total of three contacts ranging from June 2013 to February this year in China and South Korea, the indicted lieutenant commander serving at the anti-espionage body, the Defense Security Command, handed over about 27 military secrets, stored on SD memory cards, to Chinese agents, the prosecution said. The secrets were later delivered to a Chinese man, whom the lieutenant commander befriended during his studies in China in 2010.

The identity of the Chinese man, who received the South Korean secrets, remains shrouded in secrecy, the military prosecutor said, adding that they have yet to identify the man, who is believed to work for a Chinese think tank.