South Korea general and wife ‘treated soldiers like slaves’

More than 60 years after the end of the Korean War, every able-bodied South Korean man between the age of 18 and 35 is required to perform two years of military service. -AFP filepic

SEOUL: A South Korean general and his wife treated soldiers like “slaves”, forcing them to retrieve golf balls and pick up toenail clippings, a rights group alleged, prompting officials to launch a probe Wednesday.

Soldiers assigned to the home of four-star general Park Chan-Ju and his wife “did the laundry, ironing, gardening, cleaning bathrooms, picking up every little trash -- even pieces of toenails or dead skin cells,” the Centre for Military Human Rights Korea said in a press statement.