SKorean military imprisons army officer for spying

[allesennogwat]

SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean army officer accused of helping a North Korean spy in a sex-for-secrets scandal has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, the Defense Ministry said Friday.

The 27-year-old first lieutenant, identified only by his family name Hwang, was sentenced by a military court earlier this week for abetting and concealing the espionage of convicted North Korean agent Won Jeong Hwa, the ministry said.

Hwang has a week to appeal the ruling, the ministry said.

Won was sentenced in October to five years in prison for passing classified information to North Korea, including the locations of key military installations and personal information about South Korean military officers.

Investigators said she posed as a defector from the North and traded sex for secrets from Hwang.

The extraordinary details in the charges against Won drew wide media attention, with some newspapers calling her Korea's version of "Mata Hari," the notorious dancer-turned-World War I spy.

Under South Korean law, spying for North Korea is a crime that is punishable by death. Won is the second North Korean convicted for spying in a decade.

The case has worsened South Korea's already soured ties with the North; Pyongyang has accused Seoul of fabricating the spy scandal to tarnish the communist nation's image.

The two sides fought a 1950-53 War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically still at war.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090116...d-d3b07b8.html