By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
A French bodyguard possessing a gun passed through security inspection at Incheon International Airport last Thursday, raising concerns over security.
The unidentified man carried a gun and bullets to the gate for his Air France flight to Paris.
The man was the bodyguard of Anne-Marie Idrac, French Minister of State for Foreign Trade who was visiting Korea for the OECD Ministerial Meeting.
As protocol, the bodyguard used a separate passage, one usually reserved for airport staff, and X-ray checkups did not detect the weapon.
Under Korean law, those who have to carry weapons have to report it to the customs authority when checking in. Customs officials then take the weapons, seal them, and hand them over to flight attendants. Attendants keep them in the cockpit.
``Upon arriving at Incheon Airport from France, the bodyguard was given back his weapon, after Korean customs officials registered it. When leaving, he was supposed to report the gun when checking in. But he did not, and passed the security inspection, reporting to flight attendants he still had the gun just before boarding,'' an Incheon International Airport Corp. official said.
``We admit that we neglected to check him as he was escorting the minister. The security system of the staff-only passage, including X-ray inspection, did not work properly somehow,'' the official said, adding such things never happen in checkups for ordinary passengers.
The incident took place when airport staff were on high alert, as President Lee Myung-bak was scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of the airport's new facilities the next day.