Il Shim Hue Member Planned Violent Attacks

A member of the Democratic Labor Party who was arrested Oct. 24 on charges of spying for North Korea reportedly told investigators he drew up plans for terror attacks against conservatives and influential government figures in the 1990s.

What the report doesn’t  clarify is just what methods were put into those plans, although investigators claim that the suspect, a DLP member named Park, tried to buy  a gun.  Any plan involving a deadly weapon would clearly be terrorism.  MBN-TV reports that  Park may have had a hand in this attack against the Chosun Ilbo’s 78 year-old honorary chairman last September.  That attack would probably fit a legal definition of terrorism, a more  common-sense description would be thuggish intimidation.  On the other hand, the attackers actually went through with it.  And he was just one of about 40 South Korean conservatives on the target list.

Prosecutors said Wednesday  [Park’s] list of targets included former president Chun Doo-whan, Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, former North Korean Workers’ Party secretary Hwang Jang-yup who defected to the South in 1997 and Chosun Ilbo president Bang Sang-hoon.

Hwang, as you recall, was on the receiving end of this death threat, which to my knowledge remains unsolved.  Just like pretty much every other recent incident of radical violence.   This story  could and should have major legal implications for the DLP if leaders were involved. 

Nice to at least see that this story isn’t completely dead, and I don’t doubt that many would wish it was.