Military police and prosecutors here gathered Tuesday to seek ways to root out pervasive corruption and on-base sex crimes, the defense ministry said.
  

Some 150 senior officials in the military law enforcement agencies under the defense ministry and all branches of service "discussed what causes sexual abuse cases among the servicemembers, how to better protect victims, and how to set up a cooperative mechanism to eradicate corruption in the defense industry," according to the ministry.
  

The first meeting of its kind involving all law enforcement authorities in the military took place after a series of incidents involving corruption in the defense industry by former and active-duty officers and several cases of sexual abuse among the service personnel, which laid bare a culture of lax discipline, fueling public distrust in the military.
  

In January, an Army colonel was arrested on charges of raping a female subordinate multiple times. In October, a two-star general was arrested for sexually harassing a female subordinate at his office five times.
  

Investigations are under way by a government task force into several graft cases in the defense field. In one case, a former naval chief and a handful of former and current arms procurement agency officials are suspected of playing a role in taking bribes from a local firm that supplied substandard parts for the country's indigenous salvage ship, the Tongyeong.
  

"The (military's) prosecution and police should cooperate further to spot signs of crimes at an early time and to carry out thorough investigations," said Lim Cheon-young, the ministry's legal affairs chief. "We will leave no stone unturned."
  

Presiding over the meeting, Defense Minister Han Min-koo called for the officials "to take the lead to achieve tangible results within the year," urging them to try to "be fairer and more professional." (Yonhap)