Devildogg4ever
08-13-03, 04:13 AM
Wed August 13, 2003 03:58 AM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. Army officer apprehended by South Korean police who saw him disposing of a body along a highway has been turned over to American military authorities, police and the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
Major Richard Hart, 45, was arrested on Tuesday after highway police, patrolling the expressway between the capital Seoul and Inchon International Airport, saw him attempting to throw a large plastic bag off a bridge into the sea, Inchon police said.
The bag contained the nude body of his 52-year-old wife, who was a U.S. citizen, said Oh Hee-suk, an officer at Inchon's Sobu police station. U.S. military authorities confirmed that Hart was in American military custody and under investigation.
South Korea has the right under a bilateral treaty to prosecute crimes committed by U.S. soldiers unrelated to official duty, but the U.S. Army exercises jurisdiction when the victim is also affiliated with the U.S. military in Korea.
Incidents involving the 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea have sparked protests over the American military presence, which dates back to the 1950-53 Korean War.
The streets of Seoul and other cities erupted in anti-U.S. protests last November after a military court acquitted two U.S. soldiers whose tank-like vehicle crushed two schoolgirls to death in a road accident during a training exercise.
In another incident on Tuesday that might have triggered protests if South Koreans had been harmed, two U.S. Army aviators died when their C-12 twin-engine aircraft crashed near Pyontaek, 36 miles south of Seoul.
The U.S. Army identified the fliers on Wednesday as Captain Kevin Norman, 30, from California, and Chief Warrant Officer David Snow, 37, from North Carolina. An army statement commended the men for steering their plane away from a populated area.
With the approach of South Korea's Independence Day holiday on August 15, South Korea has boosted security around the U.S. embassy in Seoul, the U.S. Forces Korea headquarters, and other facilities that are often targets of anti-U.S. protests.
Leftist groups plan to stage an anti-U.S. rally on the holiday, the 58th anniversary of the World War II surrender of Japan, which had ruled the Korean peninsula as a colony. The groups accuse the United States of threatening North Korea.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JQ1J5FSC34OYGCRBAE0CF FA?type=topNews&storyID=3268724
SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. Army officer apprehended by South Korean police who saw him disposing of a body along a highway has been turned over to American military authorities, police and the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
Major Richard Hart, 45, was arrested on Tuesday after highway police, patrolling the expressway between the capital Seoul and Inchon International Airport, saw him attempting to throw a large plastic bag off a bridge into the sea, Inchon police said.
The bag contained the nude body of his 52-year-old wife, who was a U.S. citizen, said Oh Hee-suk, an officer at Inchon's Sobu police station. U.S. military authorities confirmed that Hart was in American military custody and under investigation.
South Korea has the right under a bilateral treaty to prosecute crimes committed by U.S. soldiers unrelated to official duty, but the U.S. Army exercises jurisdiction when the victim is also affiliated with the U.S. military in Korea.
Incidents involving the 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea have sparked protests over the American military presence, which dates back to the 1950-53 Korean War.
The streets of Seoul and other cities erupted in anti-U.S. protests last November after a military court acquitted two U.S. soldiers whose tank-like vehicle crushed two schoolgirls to death in a road accident during a training exercise.
In another incident on Tuesday that might have triggered protests if South Koreans had been harmed, two U.S. Army aviators died when their C-12 twin-engine aircraft crashed near Pyontaek, 36 miles south of Seoul.
The U.S. Army identified the fliers on Wednesday as Captain Kevin Norman, 30, from California, and Chief Warrant Officer David Snow, 37, from North Carolina. An army statement commended the men for steering their plane away from a populated area.
With the approach of South Korea's Independence Day holiday on August 15, South Korea has boosted security around the U.S. embassy in Seoul, the U.S. Forces Korea headquarters, and other facilities that are often targets of anti-U.S. protests.
Leftist groups plan to stage an anti-U.S. rally on the holiday, the 58th anniversary of the World War II surrender of Japan, which had ruled the Korean peninsula as a colony. The groups accuse the United States of threatening North Korea.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JQ1J5FSC34OYGCRBAE0CF FA?type=topNews&storyID=3268724