Posted on 04/13/2006 10:41:07 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Kim Young-nam's Abductor Now Free in S.Korea
The North Korean agent who kidnapped Kim Young-nam from South Korea in 1978 now lives in Seoul and has his own business, it was revealed Thursday. Kim was this week identified as the man North Korea says was married to the famous Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota.
In a divided nation, his abductor Kim Gwang-hyun lives comfortably in the South while his victim is stuck in the repressive North as an instructor of spies who will be dispatched to the South.
Kim Gwang-hyun kidnapped Kim Young-nam, then a high school student who was on excursion to Sunyu Island in August 1978. The agent was arrested off the coast of Seosan, South Korea on June 21, 1980 while spying on the South and settled here after his release.
The Japanese police on Thursday said they hope to send investigators to question the former North Korean agent, since Kim Young-nam is said to have been married to Megumi Yokota, who has become a symbol of North Korea’s abductions in her homeland. Japan's National Police Agency Chief Iwao Uruma told reporters cooperation from the South Korean police will be essential in solving the abduction.
Uruma said he had already made a request to Korean police, and Japanese investigators will be dispatched to Seoul as soon as a schedule has been agreed. “I myself in 1991 questioned Kim Hyun-hee, one of the North Korean agents who blew up a South Korean plane, to solve the abduction of Yaeko Taguchi,” who was kidnapped by North Korea and taught Kim Hyun-hee Japanese.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the ministry had not been notified by Tokyo, but once the official request comes, the ministry will review it. Korean police said they are ready to help their Japanese counterparts if they officially request cooperation.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
A couple of years ago, N. Korea admitted finally that they abducted Megumi. However, N. Korea insisted Megumi Yokota was dead, and sent her ash to Japan, which Japan tested and claimed that it is not hers. Then we learn that Megumi's husband could be actually a S. Korean abductee,Kim Young-nam, who was kidnapped at a S. Korean beach around the same time Megumi was. It was confirmed by DNA test, in which Japanese got a match between hair sample of Kim's immediate family and the blood sample of Megumi's daughter Japanese was able to obtain earlier.
Now it turned out that the N. Korean agent who abducted Kim Young-nam was captured by S. Koreans during his subsequent espionage operation. He must have cooperated, cut a deal, and let go. He now lives in S. Korea. Really, a really bizzare of events.
Ping!
"when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
-hunter s. thompson (r.i.p.)
Thank you for getting more on this story.
When will you put them all into a book, it would be wild reading, better than fiction.
I am always amazed at the twists and turns a leaders mind takes.
Is this a Korea pinglist?
Yes.
Correction:
Really, a really bizarre of events. --> A really really bizzare series of events.
Could you include me on it?
Ought to just turn the drug-dealing, counterfeiting, criminal nation of North Korea into a pile of radioactive ash. They've been at war with just about everybody, including us, for so long, we just ought to finish it.
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