Posted on 08/05/2003 7:29:34 AM PDT by dead
North Korea has accused South Korean conservatives of murdering a top Hyundai executive found dead while under investigation for illicit payments of millions of dollars to the North.
Chung Mong-Hun, who was on trial over the illegal cash transfer to North Korea in 2000, fell to his death on Monday from his high-rise office building in central Seoul. Police said he committed suicide.
North Korea said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency: "Chung's death was not a suicide in a true sense of the word, but a murder by South Korea's independent counsel and main opposition Grand National Party, which oppose inter-Korean progress."
Inter-Korean economic projects were in jeopardy as a result of the "murder", and tours to the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang - operated by Hyundai Asan, of which Chung was chairman - would be suspended following the death, it added.
Chung was one of the central figures standing trial over Hyundai's transfer of $US500 million ($767 million) to North Korea just before the inter-Korean summit in 2000.
A special counsel found in June that $US100 million transferred by Hyundai to North Korea was paid on behalf of South Korea's Government and might be linked to the staging of the summit. The former president Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize partly as a result of the summit.
In a separate development, the White House has dismissed North Korea's insistence that a senior State Department official, John Bolton, whom Pyongyang called "human scum", be barred from upcoming talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Agence France-Presse, Los Angeles Times
Conservatives won't "jump". I prefer tar and feathers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.