New chief ordered 1983 attack

The newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian air force is the officer who ordered the shooting down of a Korean Airlines civilian passenger jet, flight KAL 007, more than 14 years ago, Moscow's defence ministry has confirmed. All 269 people on board the flight died.

Gen Anatoly Kornukov, formerly air-defence commander of the Moscow region, was named as the new air force chief by President Yeltsin last week and his connection with the airliner incident went unnoticed until the weekend.

In an interview with Russian NTV television, Gen Kornukov (55) said the incident was an "unpleasant" memory but he still believed his decision was the correct one.

The Korean Boeing 747 jumbo jet was en route for Seoul from Alaska when it strayed into what was then Soviet air space over Sakhalin Island just north of Japan. As it approached a high-security military installation on the Kamchatka peninsula, a Soviet fighter aircraft ordered it to change course.

According to Moscow's version of the incident at the time, the airliner refused to comply and the fighter then fired warning shots. When the Korean plane maintained its course the pilot of the fighter aircraft was ordered to shoot it down.

It has now emerged that the order was given by Gen Kornukov who was then in charge of the Sakhalin air-defence system.

The incident brought Soviet-US relations to one of their lowest points since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. President Reagan described the Soviet action as "barbarous" and the US Senate passed a unanimous vote of condemnation.

Among those killed were 61 US citizens, including the chairman of the ultra-conservative anticommunist John Birch Society, Mr Larry McDonald a Congressman from Georgia.

The Soviet authorities claimed the aircraft was flying in a restricted area and had its navigation lights switched off. In a press conference a week afterwards they claimed the aircraft was on a spying mission for the US and released a tape recording of the fighter pilot's remarks to his base.

The fighter pilot, later identified as Gennady Osipovich, at first calmly told his superiors: "I am closing in on target." He then reported: "I am in lock-in . . . launch executed . . . target destroyed."

While there was no evidence that the airliner was involved in espionage, the Washington authorities admitted that a US spy plane had been in the area two hours before the incident.

Reuters reports from Moscow:

Several dozen Russians have confessed to spying for foreign powers on a hotline set up by the security services, Interfax news agency said yesterday. A new criminal code exonerates those who confess to working for foreign intelligence agencies.