US citizen ‘spied on N. Korea for foreign agents’
Print Edition
AN American detained in North Korea said he had spied against the country and asked for forgiveness at a media presentation yesterday, nine days after a US tourist was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion.
Kim Tong Chol told a press conference in Pyongyang that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down North Korea’s leadership and tried to spread religious ideas among North Koreans.
Kim admitted to committing “unpardonable espionage” under the direction of the US and South Korean governments and deeply apologized for his crimes.
Kim apologized for trying to steal military and state secrets in collusion with South Koreans, and said he was paid for doing it.
“The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic’s highest dignity and its system and spreading false propaganda aimed at breaking down its solidarity,” he said.
Kim said he feels sorry for his crime and appealed to North Korean authorities to show him mercy by forgiving him.
Photographs issued by North Korea’s state news agency showed Kim bowing and wiping away tears.
Kim spoke of making contacts with South Koreans to pass secret information contained in USB memory sticks and also images state media said were damaging to North Korea on data storage cards.
He was born in South Korea and became a naturalized US citizen. In an interview with CNN in January, Kim said he lived in Fairfax, Virginia, before moving in 2011 to Yangji, a city near the Chinese-North Korean border. He said he commuted daily to Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea, where he was president of a trade and hotel services company.
He said in the Pyongyang press conference that he was detained in Rason last October.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, said Kim’s case wasn’t related to the organization in any way and offered no further comment.
On March 16, North Korea’s highest court sentenced Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate, to prison after he confessed he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.
He tearfully confessed at his press conference to the attempted theft, which would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge.
The US government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
