Military academy professor indicted for taking kickbacks

Prosecutors have indicted a professor at a military academy on charges of receiving 20 million won ($19,020) in kickbacks from a local defense firm in return for business favors, officials said Tuesday.

The 60-year-old professor at the Korea Military Academy, indentified only by his surname Kim, was not detained, the officials at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said.

The 31-year-old head of the firm, surnamed Kim, was also indicted on bribery charges.

The professor signed a false research contract with the firm between November 2008 and April 2009, and pocketed the kickbacks, saying that he would give favors during the quality testing of the firm’s bullet-proof military supplies.

At the time, his research center at the academy carried out 80 percent of the quality testing, prosecutors explained.

Investigators also found that the head of the firm supplied the military with Chinese-made leather gloves although it had an agreement to provide domestically-produced gloves. It raked in 350 million won after selling the imported gloves to the military.

Meanwhile, prosecutors indicted three officials of another local defense firm late last month on charges of inflating the prices of component parts of military communications equipment and selling them to the military from 2005 to 2009.

“There have recently been many cases in which defense firms abuse preferential policies for them. This resulted in a waste of our defense budgets. We will continue to crack down on such firms,” a prosecution official said, declining to be named.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)