South Korea officially referred North Korea to the UN Security Council today over the sinking of a navy ship that killed 46 sailors, taking its strongest step toward making the communist North face international punishment.

South Korea’s president said his nation will no longer tolerate North Korea’s “brutality” and said the regime would pay for a surprise torpedo attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

NORTH Korea said South Korea fabricated evidence implicating the North in a torpedo attack in order to pick on the North and any attempt at retaliating for the warship’s sinking would be answered with “all-out war”.

In the face of world-wide condemnation North Korea today claimed damning evidence that it torpedoed a South Korean warship was fabricated.