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| ▲ This photo, released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Nov. 28, 2024, shows the flight path of a South Korean drone claimed by the North's defense ministry. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap) |
drone command-allegations
Drone command suspected of manipulating data to conceal N.K. drone dispatch
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-suk's team investigating the allegation that former President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered a drone dispatch to North Korea last year to justify his future declaration of martial law has reportedly detected circumstances of flight data manipulation by the Drone Operations Command (DOC) to conceal the dispatch.
The team suspects that Yoon directly ordered the DOC to send drones to Pyongyang last October in order to incite the North's retaliation and use it as a pretext for imposing martial law.
The DOC said in a report to the defense ministry in February that one of its drones crashed on Oct. 15 last year for unknown reasons during domestic training. But the special counsel team suspects that the DOC sent two drones to Pyongyang on Oct. 8, one of which crashed, and compiled the false report to cover up the incident.
According to informed officials Tuesday, several drones, similar to the ones that were allegedly sent to North Korea, were seen flying over the Defense Counterintelligence Command (DCC) toward Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, at 9:21 p.m. on Oct. 17. The DCC attempted to capture the drones using an anti-drone gun but failed to identify them after searching for about two hours.
The DOC is suspected of manipulating flight records to make it seem like the drone that crashed in Pyongyang had gone missing during domestic flight training in the skies over the DCC and Gwacheon, the officials said.
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