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N. Korea executed 6 officials for mass defection of waitresses

N. Korea executed 6 officials for mass defection of waitresses

Posted July. 30, 2016 07:12,   

Updated July. 30, 2016 07:20

한국어

North Korea executed in public six people allegedly responsible for the April mass defection of 13 waitresses who had been working at a North Korean restaurant in China, a North Korea watcher has claimed.

“I heard from informed sources on North Korea that the North executed in public six people responsible for the defection, including security teachers (agents for the State Security Department), at the Kang Kon general military academy in Pyongyang on May 5,” Choi Seong-ryong, head of North Korean defectors’ family organization, said on Friday. “The execution was conducted in the presence of more than 100 people, including senior officials from the State Security Department, the reconnaissance politburo, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and the People’s Security Ministry, and family members of North Korean workers deployed overseas.”

The North held a press conference on May 3 by mobilizing family members and colleagues of the North Korean defectors, claiming that the defectors had been kidnapped by the South Korean government. If Choi’s remarks are true, the North has effectively admitted to the waitresses’ defection internally by executing the six people in public, only two days after blasting the South in a press conference by claiming that the waitresses had been kidnapped.

Choi said the North offered ideology education by collectively detaining family members of waitresses who returned to the North at a training center on Mount Myohyang. “The whereabouts of seven waitresses who did not join the defectors while living together in China and returned to the North is unknown,” he added.



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