By Lee Tae-hoon
The Marine Corps will relieve two commanding officers of their duties following a shooting spree last week in a military base near the inter-Korean border, an officer said Sunday.
"The Marine Corps has decided to hold regimental commander Col. Min and battalion commander Lt. Col. Han responsible for the deadly shooting incident," the senior Marine officer said asking for anonymity.
He added that the two commanding officers will be suspended from their duties today and Tuesday, respectively.
The Marine Corps has been under growing criticism for its culture of bullying and hazing, which allegedly drove a corporal identified only as Kim to kill four fellow soldiers on July 4.
The 19-year-old conscripted soldier confessed that he wanted to flee his base on Gwanghwa Island in the West Sea after killing his colleagues and destroying a watchtower because he could no longer stand the indignity and bullying at his unit.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin instructed military commanders to carry out a thorough inspection of its “disgraceful” culture of bullying and hazing among soldiers.
``Defense Minister Kim has issued an order instructing all commanders to inspect possible irregularities and illegal acts at their bases,” another military source said also on condition of anonymity.
He said Minister Kim asked them to report their findings by August and come up with measures to prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy at workshops to be held in early September.
Military prosecutors indicted the shooter, Kim, Saturday on four counts of murder and the theft of weapons. They plan to question him over the motives for the rampage from today and the extent of any involvement of an alleged accomplice named Jeong, who claimed that he also underwent inhumane suffering at the military unit
Kim was judged to be mentally unstable at the time of the shooting. He allegedly suffered from personality disorders and showed signs of schizophrenia before joining the unit last September.
Kim was hospitalized after detonating a hand grenade inside a warehouse in an apparent suicide attempt.