Military prosecutors have launched an investigation into the leak of blueprint for facilities to protect wartime military leading command posts from electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks.
The prosecution said Monday that they found the blueprint for the anti-EMP facilities during a search of offices of two design firms, partners to a rival consortia led by Kolon Construction and Hanshin Gongyoung, which competed for the project.
The Ministry of National Defense launched the anti-EMP project at the Jaundae Wartime Military Command post in Daejeon last March.
Reports said the search and seizure were made in the process of investigating a bribery case involving ranking military officers.
The military prosecution believes that there was a leak of information on capability and design guidelines as well as the blueprint of the facilities.
The defense ministry has provided information concerning the command post to the designers on condition that they need to handle the information in a controled zone, when they estimated the total cost.
“The military prosecution is investigating how the information was leaked, by arresting those from design firms on charge of violating the Military Secret Protection Law,” said a prosecutor. “I believe there is circumstantial evidence that the engineering firms were involved.”