The South Korean navy has found nine bodies inside a captured North Korean submarine, military sources said yesterday. All the bodies were found with gunshot wounds to the head and a AK-47 rifle was lying close by, indicating that the captain murdered his crew before turning the gun on himself, the sources said.
The bodies were found in the cabin by navy commandos who carried out an overnight search. The vessel was captured on Monday in South Korean waters after becoming entangled in fishing nets.
South Korean authorities had hoped to interrogate the crew about their mission and find out why they were in South Korean waters.
The commandos also found US-made diving equipment and two bottles of South Korean-made soft drinks wrapped in a cloth, a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) spokesman said. The items indicated the submarine might have been on an infiltration mission into the south, military authorities said.
North Korea admitted on Tuesday that a "small submarine" was "wrecked" during a training exercise off Kosang in the East Sea of Korea (Sea of Japan), and that a search was underway.
The mini-submarine, which sunk 1.8 km (1.125 miles) off Tonghae while being towed into port, was refloated by divers using airbags on the seabed 30 metres (100 feet) down and towed it to the pier.
Security-related ministers, including those for defence and the National Intelligence Service, formerly known as Korean CIA, held an emergency meeting late yesterday to determine the nature of the submarine intrusion.
President Kim Dae-Jung, who has come under pressure from the opposition to get tougher with the north because of the intrusion, yesterday reaffirmed that there would be no change to his "Sunshine Policy" of promoting better contacts with the north.