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Thae Yong Ho's brother serves as Kim Il Sung University president

Thae Yong Ho's brother serves as Kim Il Sung University president

Posted December. 08, 2016 07:53,   

Updated December. 08, 2016 08:32

한국어

A brother of Thae Yong Ho, former North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom who defected to South Korea in August, is well without having been purged. Oleg Kiriyanov, a researcher on North Korea at Moscow University in Russia, told the Dong-A Ilbo on Wednesday, "During his recent visit to the North, I verified that Thae Hyong Chol is still serving the president of Kim Il Sung University and he hosted the university’s 70th founding anniversary ceremony on October 1. The Russia researcher visited the North on Oct. 14 for a week-long tour in Pyongyang, Nampo and Mt. Kumgang, before entering South Korea recently.

On Aug. 20, three days after Thae Yong Ho’s defection was made public, North Korea labeled the defected diplomat as a “human scumbag,” who abandoned his parents and brothers and committed the crimes of state funds embezzlement, selling of state secrets and raping of a minor. However, it seems that the North did not do any physical harm to the diplomat’s brother apparently out of concern over controversies over the North’s guilt-by-association system. The North’s Kim Jong Un regime is said to pay great attention to the international community’s criticism of Pyongyang’s human rights violations.



Soong-Ho Cho shcho@donga.com