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.
The weapons would have been shipped to APO boxes, no doubt.
I thought this story smelled of a red herring. Something to toss out to distract people’s attention from the main issue — the 386 Generation Spy Case.
Park was called a DLP member but nothing more. Was he just another registered voter? Also note that in 1998 runs around threatening everybody — like all the Korean drunks that down near marketplace near my apartment — but did nothing about it. So what’s the crime? Then in 2003, he crosses the Tumen River to offer to be a spy for the North, but they turn him back over to the Chinese. Now in 2006, the NIS FINALLY decides to question him? Takes only three years to discover that he entered the North illegally. But again what’s the big problem? He was a spy wannabe that failed. Not very sensational stuff here…
This seems like the type of bone that is thrown out to distract people’s attention — but in the end is worthless fluff. This sure appears to be a red herring.
Meanwhile the new NIS director nominee said that the 386 Generation Spy case will not confirm if it is a spy case and the prosecutors office complains about the number of pages of evidence that they have to wade through in 30 days. They want to distract people’s attention badly.
You’re right…they must draw attention away from the Koreans and Korean-Americans on Yongsan. The whole scheme of things depends on it.