S. Korea Marine Judged Unstable before Shooting

A South Korean Marine who killed four colleagues in a shooting spree had been found to have mental problems and was drinking alcohol before his rampage, a military official said Tuesday.

The 19-year-old corporal identified only as Kim fired at least a dozen rounds Monday at a Marine Corps barracks on Gangwha island west of Seoul, killing four Marines and injuring one other.

Kim himself was hospitalized after being injured by a grenade blast in a possible suicide attempt.

An army psychology test had earlier found Kim to be unstable and to have difficulty in coping with military life, said Captain Kwon Young-Jae, who heads the investigation into the case.

"His superiors had found him displaying odd behavior... we are of the view that the accident was largely due to issues in his personality and mental state," Kwon told reporters.

Kwon said that just before the incident a barracks mate had seen Kim, who was smelling of liquor, staggering with a red face and declaring he would kill a colleague -- who was later shot dead.

"He apparently had been drinking, which under the rules is prohibited," Kwon said, adding several bottles of liquor were found nearby.

Kim also left a memo containing complaints about his life and a letter that appeared to be a will, Kwon said, refusing to give details.

A memo that military investigators found in Kim's locker read: "I hate myself. I'm a troublemaker. So many (people) are trying to change me," according to Yonhap news agency.

The elite Marine Corps is charged with guarding frontline islands in the Yellow Sea near the tense disputed border with the North.

But Monday's incident -- the third in six years -- raised questions about standards of discipline in the South's largely conscript 650,000-strong military.

Able-bodied South Korean men must undergo at least two years' military service and some complain of abuse and harassment.

Eight soldiers were killed and two seriously injured in 2005 when a soldier threw a grenade and sprayed bullets over sleeping colleagues at a frontline guard post north of Seoul.

The soldier in the 2005 incident alleged senior colleagues had bullied him.

In 2008 an army private struggling to adapt to military life threw a grenade at sleeping colleagues, injuring five.

Marines and other military units have been on high border alert for months, after the South accused the North of torpedoing a warship in March 2010 and killing 46 sailors.

The North denied the warship attack but shelled a South Korean border island last November, killing two civilians and two Marines.

The North's military has recently warned of "merciless" retaliation for anti-Pyongyang slogans displayed by South Korean troops near the land border.