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North Korean defector with cancer avoids jail after Hong Kong court told she stole to pay medical bills
HK resident sentenced for fraud breaks silence over her painful past
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 27 January, 2015, 5:20pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 28 January, 2015, 2:37am
Chris Lau [email protected]
Until the court case, Lau Shaun's true identity was hidden from all except her foster family in Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP
For the first time, a North Korean defector living in obscurity among Hongkongers revealed publicly how 16 of her family were possibly sacrificed after she and her sister fled the totalitarian regime nearly four decades ago.
Lau Shaun, 45, offered insights into her secret identity yesterday following her sentencing to six months in jail, suspended for two years, over her guilty plea to fraud charges. Lau was also fined HK$16,000 by Principal Magistrate Ernest Lin Kam-hung at Kwun Tong Court.
"[It took] 16 lives to save two girls," Lau said.
All had been thrown into a labour camp, where both her parents had died, according to an uncle who fled to the United States. Nothing was known about the rest, she was told. That was the last time Lau, then 15, heard news about her family.
Lau's painful past could have remained under wraps, had she not landed in court for swindling HK$70,000 late last year out of a handbag manufacturer, where she was a manager, to treat stage-three spinal cancer at a time when her husband was out of a job, the court heard last month. Lau admitted to one count of obtaining property by deception and another of forgery.
She had since returned the money and was physically and mentally too weak to serve a custodial sentence, her lawyer Eric Lo Chi-ming said in mitigation yesterday. A report on Lau suggested she felt "foolish" for issuing bogus purchase orders and falsely claiming expenses over business trips, Lo said.
Of her health and family circumstances, Lau said: "The situation has got a lot better."
Earlier, the court heard Lau was born in North Korea and fled the hermit state with her sister when she was six, leaving the rest of their family behind.
She revealed more details yesterday outside court.
One morning 39 years ago, Lau said, her parents woke the siblings and handed them over to a middleman to go on a train.
"They asked us to follow this man to live a happy life in the future," she said. "At that time, trains delivered food between China and North Korea … this was the only way out."
The sisters hid among the boxes, she added, and the next thing they knew, they had arrived safely in northeastern China.
Lau's sister was adopted by a missionary and moved to the United States, while Lau, at seven years old, sailed to Hong Kong and settled with a foster family.
Until the court proceedings, she said, they were the only ones who knew her true identity.
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How defector hightailed it from hermit state
"When I left, I had no idea it was going to be goodbye forever," Lau Shaun says of the day her parents put her on a journey with an elder sister 39 years ago to flee as far away from home as possible. She was just six at the time.
The strictly one-way train ride was carefully paid for and arranged by their parents so they could leave North Korea for good.
"Dad only told us we needed to follow an uncle to a happy place," Lau said, referring to a middleman the parents had hired to smuggle their daughters out of the country. "We only found out what was going on after we were told to hide among boxes when we were on board."
The North Korean defector, now 45 and feeble with cancer, has been shrouding her true identity all her life, and it was not until a mitigation session last month that a defence lawyer revealed her painful past in open court.
Lau was sentenced yesterday to six months' jail, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty at Kwun Tong Court to one count each of obtaining property by deception and of forgery. She was also fined HK$16,000.
It was in the same courtroom that she lifted the veil on her life for the first time, she told the South China Morning Post.
Lau's parents used to be civil servants, she recalled, jobs that entitled them to a quarter more food than families that did not have civil-service employees.
It was all the more reason why they should not turn their backs on the country they called home.
But once, when Lau was four, she asked her mother why they had to thank "Dear Leader" Kim Il-sung for a pair of shoes she had made for her.
"My mum immediately covered my mouth and said if our neighbours heard it, they would report us to the authority in exchange for a food ticket," Lau said of the early hint that her parents would one day set them on the path of departure.
After the siblings' escape to northeastern China, Lau was adopted by a Hong Kong family while her sister ended up in the United States with a missionary.
In 1980, Lau successfully applied for a South Korean passport with her original birth certificate.
While she might not be campaigning for human rights in her country, Lau would visit the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong every now and then to discuss politics with the staff.
Even so, prior to the court case, her foster family were the only people in the city who knew of her true identity. Not even her husband of two years was privy to the fact, she said, though she was not hiding it on purpose.
"In North Korea, the government treats you like scum regardless of the social rank you belong to … So all deserters hate to reveal their lives to others because it's a scar, a deep burden."
Most defectors tend to take on new identities partly to avoid retaliation from home. Added to that, Lau said, many did not want to be reminded of how their self-esteem used to be trampled.
In her case, 16 of her family members, including her parents, were locked up in a labour camp after the sisters' escape.
Asked if she had ever regretted leaving, she replied: "I was in pain when I was 18, but now I only feel there is a heavy weight on my heart."
