SEOUL, July 26 (UPI) -- A three-star general was sacked in South Korea Monday for mishandling a naval confrontation with North Korea, defense officials said.
Lieutenant General Park Sung-choon, head of the defense intelligence agency at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was accused of leaking information about the South's reaction to the North's violation of the inter-Korean maritime border.
"The defense ministry has dismissed Park from his post to take responsibility for causing trouble to the president and the entire military," Defense Ministry spokesman Nam Dai-yeon said in a statement. Park will retire from the military, Nam said.
Park had disclosed to the media the contents of radio exchanges between North and South Korean ships in a bid to justify the South Korean navy's warning shots at an intruding North Korean patrol boat.
Park said he had hoped to show that North Korea had sought to mislead the South Korean navy by claiming that the intruding North Korean naval vessel was a Chinese fishing boat.
