North Korea arrests two ‘South Korean spies’ who allegedly stole secrets, spread fake money
PUBLISHED : Friday, 27 March, 2015, 5:31pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 21 April, 2015, 12:41pm
Agence France-Presse in Seoul
Alleged South Korean spies Kim Kuk-gi (left) and Choe Chun-gil were paraded to the media by North Korean authorities. Photos: Kyodo
North Korea said it had arrested two South Korean spies who allegedly operated from a base in the Chinese border city of Dandong.
The announcement was made months after the two, identified as Kim Kuk-gi, 60, and Choe Chun-gil, 55, were detained for allegedly stealing secrets or confidential information about the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, state organisations and the military.
In a dispatch last night, the North’s official KCNA news agency described the two as “heinous terrorists” who tried to create economic chaos by circulating counterfeit money and spread “unsound” publications to the public.
“They zealously took part in an anti-DPRK [North Korea] smear campaign organised by US intelligence and the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS),” the KCNA said.
The two arrested men, said to have lived in China for many years, were presented at a “press conference” in Pyongyang, attended by journalists and foreign diplomats.
North Korean officials at the event said Kim Kuk-gi was detained last September in Pyongyang, while Choe was captured by border patrol agents after entering North Korea on December 30.
South Korea today demanded the pair’s release. Though the NIS said it was still trying to confirm Kim and Choe’s nationality, they said the charge that the two men were working for the agency was “absolutely groundless”.
A North Korean official shows the counterfeit money that the two detained 'spies' allegedly circulated to sow economic chaos. Photo: Reuters
South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters said it was “deeply regrettable” that North Korea detained them and made “nonsensical claims” about their activities.
North Korea “should immediately set them free and repatriate them,” he said, adding that the North “has violated international practices, human rights which are universal values and humanitarianism”.
Lim also demanded the immediate release of a South Korean Christian missionary, Kim Jeong-uk, who has been in detention in the North for nearly a year.
Among other things, Kim was accused of spreading “religious propaganda” from an “underground church” he ran in Dandong, which has a large ethnic Korean community and is a hub of both official and illicit cross-border trade.
Cross-border ties are already strained over ongoing joint South Korea-US military exercises that Pyongyang has condemned as provocative rehearsals for invasion.
In the past, North Korea has occasionally detained South Korean nationals on accusations of spying in what experts say are attempts to pressure Seoul or raise North Korean people’s hostility towards the South.
With additional reporting from Associated Press and Kyodo
