A former South Korean Air Force major general was arrested Friday on charges of leaking classified information on long-term air power enforcement programs, including a multi-million-dollar fighter development project, to a Swedish defense firm, prosecutors here said.
The retired officer, identified only by his last name Kim, allegedly handed over confidential information related to the so-called KF-X program, aimed at developing stealth fighters, to the Seoul branch office of Saab, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said.
According to prosecutors, Kim took pictures of classified reports on combined military strategies from a special library room at Korea National Defense University in July last year. Based on the camera images, he later wrote documents in English and delivered them to Saab officials between August 2008 and May this year, they said.
Kim requested access to the library's confidential reports for research purposes, citing his enrollment in a university graduate course, the prosecution said.
South Korea has been seeking to replace its aging F-4 and F-5 fighters with ones developed through the KF-X project, which faces a murky future due to financial and technological difficulties.