Military Investigates Killing Rampage

It was reconfirmed that Private First Class Kim Dong-min (22), who had hard feelings against his superiors, hurled a grenade into a barracks and shot colleagues with a rifle after premeditating the killing, said central army investigators investigating the killing rampage at the first front line guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi province on Thursday.

The investigators added that a psychological test found that Kim had no mental disorder.

The chief investigator, Colonel Yoon Jong-sung, made public at the military hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi province the final result of the investigation based on an on-the-spot investigation and statements from soldiers and Kim.

According to investigators, Kim told his middle school alumnus, Private Cheon Won-beom, five times from May 11 that “I want to kill all the soldiers in the unit by throwing a grenade and firing a rifle.” Kim repeated the same statement on the evening of June 17, two days prior to the incident.

Kim hurled a grenade and sprayed bullets with a K-1 rifle at beds of soldiers at around 2:30 a.m. on June 19.

The chief investigator said that “22 out of 25 soldiers stated the argument that Kim fired a rifle first and then threw a grenade is not true.”

However, two army psychiatrists said that the investigators need to conduct additional interviews with Kim and conduct psychological assessments. Accordingly, investigators plan to have Kim take a psychiatric test according to legal procedures.

Han Hui-won, director of the Human Rights Violation Investigation Bureau of the National Human Rights Commission (chairman: Cho Yeong-hwang) said that “Kim was not included among eight soldiers who were being monitored for the likelihood to commit suicide. There is a loophole in the soldier management system in the unit.”

The director also said that there were suspicions about sexual molestation, and it was confirmed that there was no direct sexual molestation according to answers from Kim, who was asked three times about that suspicion.

ditto@donga.com