Posted on 04/10/2016 11:44:44 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
(2nd LD) N.K. military intelligence officer defected to S. Korea last year: Seoul
2016/04/11 14:23
(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in paras 6, 12, 15-17)
SEOUL, April 11 (Yonhap) -- A ranking North Korean military officer in charge of conducting intelligence operations defected to South Korea last year, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday, as the North's leader is tightening his grip on the regime.
A North Korean senior colonel, whose name has been withheld, defected in 2015 after working at the North's reconnaissance bureau tasked with carrying out espionage missions against the South, the ministry said.
"(The North Korean military official's defection) is a fact, but we cannot make public detailed information (about him)," Moon Sang-gyun, a ministry spokesman, said at a regular press briefing.
A source familiar with North Korean affairs said that the officer is viewed as an elite among North Koreans who have defected to the South.
"He is believed to have stated details about the bureau's operations against South Korea to authorities here," the source said.
South Korea's unification ministry said that the ranking official's defection can be seen as an example of cracks in the North's leadership.
South Korea's spy agency said last year that since taking power in late 2011 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has had more than 70 senior officials executed in an effort to tighten his grip on the communist regime.
A number of North Korea's working-level officials based in foreign nations have sought asylum apparently to avoid Kim's so-called reign of terror, according to various sources.
The North's Reconnaissance General Bureau deals with intelligence-gathering and espionage operations in foreign countries and is also responsible for cyberwarfare. The bureau is known to be behind Pyongyang's alleged cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014.
Kim Yong-chol, a new party secretary handling inter-Korean affairs, had served as the head of the bureau since 2009.
In a separate case, a North Korean diplomat stationed in an African country and his family members defected to South Korea in May last year, said another source with knowledge about North Korea.
South Korean unification ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee briefs reporters in Seoul on April 11, 2016, on the reported defection to the South by a high-ranking North Korean military official last year. The government said the North Korean senior colonel, whose detailed identity was withheld, was in charge of intelligence operations against the South. (Yonhap)South Korean unification ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee briefs reporters in Seoul on April 11, 2016, on the reported defection to the South by a high-ranking North Korean military official last year. The government said the North Korean senior colonel, whose detailed identity was withheld, was in charge of intelligence operations against the South. (Yonhap)A series of defections by senior North Korean officials and elites indicate that a growing number of North Koreans have become fed up with the North's iron-fist rules, experts say.
Last week, a group of 13 North Koreans who used to work at an overseas restaurant defected en masse to South Korea, the first mass defection since 2011. North Korean-run restaurants in foreign nations have long served as a source of hard currency for Pyongyang.
These latest developments follow the U.N. Security Council and major countries slapping tougher sanctions on North Korea for its January nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in February.
South Korea's intelligence agency and other government organizations, meanwhile, have started questioning the defectors to find out the motivations behind their actions, according to a government source.
Another source familiar with North Korea said that the defectors worked at a restaurant in the Chinese city of Ningbo and entered the South last week via Thailand and Laos.
The government has not given details and declined to comment on the defection route.
There are more than 28,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea, with some 1,280 North Koreans entering the South last year, according to Seoul's unification ministry.
P!
Excellent.
Sometimes we get a lucky break.:-)
I hope the guy doesn’t have a family, ‘cause if he does, he doesn’t anymore.
Great intelligence coup, and very dangerous times. We do not have the State Department people in place who can handle this competently.
Yup, Vietnam Horseface would apologize immediately for it.
What is truly even more frightening are the multitudes of American citizens flocking to vote for the overt communist Bernie Sanders! Talk about "useful idiots". Tagline
NORK defection ping
Yeah, no kidding.
Amateur.
That demented commie cult of a nation and the worship of the Kim lineage has gone on far too long. That demented fat lil tyrant tasbard will get his due reward someday.
I understood that if a person defects from NK, then their family and friends are all going to the gulag. Gruesome
I don’t think we can call NK communist — more like insane theo-autocracy. It’s unbelievable that it’s still going on. The only reason NK still survives is China supporting it
you are correct-
China literally laughed off the “killing fields”
Even when they were probably the last PEOPLE
in Phnom Penh - probably the LAST foreigners in the Whole country!
The norks have told their people to get ready for
ANOTHER year of Starvation-! China just sort of shrugs
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