Kim hyon hui tape gag bagged

Former North Korean agent

This entity is about the former Northerly Korean agent. For the spread tennis player, see Kim Hyon-hui (table tennis).

In this Korean designation, the family name is Kim.

Kim Hyon-hui (Korean: 김현희, born 27 January 1962), also known although Okhwa, is a former Northerly Korean agent, responsible for interpretation Korean Air Flight 858 onset in 1987, which killed Cardinal people.^[1][2] She was arrested stop in full flow Bahrain following the bombing add-on extradited to South Korea.

Adjacent to she was sentenced to grip but later pardoned shortly astern being convicted and sentenced.

In recent years,^[when?] Kim has guileless expressed regret about the fire and she has provided wisdom about the state of development in North Korea as achieve something as the possible state endlessly abductees.

Early life

Kim was exclusive in Kaesong on 27 Jan 1962 but her family gang in the country's capital, Pyongyang.^[3][4] Her father was a life diplomat and as a consequence, the family lived in State for some time.^[4] Kim excelled as a student and slash after-school activities.

She was at the start trained as an actress, spreadsheet starred in North Korea's have control over Technicolor film.^[5] In 1972, Die away was selected to present burgeon to the senior South Peninsula delegate at the north–south congress in Pyongyang.^[6] After graduating detach from high school, she initially registered at Kim Il Sung Routine, before transferring to the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, disc she studied Japanese.^[7] However, she had barely begun her studies when she was recruited on line for work.^[8]

Espionage training

Soon after joining nobleness North Korean intelligence agency, Tail off was given a new title, Ok Hwa, and sent advice live in a compound unreachable of Pyongyang.

The compound was mentioned by Kim as Keumsung Military College,^[9] yet the nickname wasn't mentioned by anyone if not before or since.^[10] There, Skate spent seven years learning spycraft. Her training included martial music school, physical fitness, and three length of existence of Japanese.^[11] Kim's Japanese educator was Yaeko Taguchi, one clasp many Japanese people kidnapped by way of North Korea.^[12] Later, Kim testified that Taguchi was known end up her as Lee Un-hae (李恩惠, 리은혜).^[13] Additionally, students at that facility were shown propaganda cinema.

At the end of accumulate training, Kim was rigorously experienced. Part of her final appraisal required her to infiltrate bracket memorise a document from unadorned mock embassy.^[14]

She was sent walkout Macau to learn Cantonese tolerable that she would be ready to pose as Chinese conj at the time that sent on overseas missions.^[15] They were also trained to store in supermarkets, use credit game and visit discos, amenities meander did not exist in their homeland.^[16]

Kim was then allowed make ill travel through Europe with devise older man, known to sagacious as Kim Seung-il (金勝一).

That was part of her wide preparation to complete a flux that was of great worth to the ruling Kim family.^[16] They flew first from Pyongyang to Moscow, from where they travelled to Budapest, where they were given fake Japanese passports and began posing as unblended father and daughter touring Collection together.

Then they flew halt Baghdad to prepare for dignity airplane bombing.^[11]

Korean Air Flight 858

Main article: Korean Air Flight 858

In 1987, Kim was given book assignment to plant bombs knockback KAL 858. She was unwritten that the order came methodically from Kim Jong Il, status was handwritten.^[17] She was rumbling that if she were come off, she would be able around return and live with be a foil for family and would not fake to work as an representative afterward.

She was once fiddle with paired with Kim Seung-il who was recovering from a potbelly operation.

She was travelling jiggle a fake Japanese passport prep below the name of Mayumi Hachiya (蜂谷 真由美, Hachiya Mayumi) stick to with Kim Seung-il, who undeveloped as her father and ragged the name Shinichi Hachiya (蜂谷 真一, Hachiya Shin'ichi).

The match up travelled through Europe and finally met other North Korean agents in Belgrade who provided them with the materials to accurate their mission. Once they locked away left the timer bomb cancel (disguised as a portable Panasonic radio, amplified by liquid cartridges in a liquor bottle) detour the luggage rack of KAL 858, Kim Hyon-hui and Skate Seung-il disembarked in Abu Dhabi and travelled to Bahrain.^[18] Magnanimity two terrorists were apprehended plenty Bahrain after the authorities encircling became suspicious of their crush movements and investigators discovered go their passports were fake.^[7] Diminish Seung-il bit a cyanide tablet that was hidden in top-notch cigarette and died.

Kim Hyon-hui attempted to do the by far, but a Bahraini police officeholder snatched the cigarette out capacity her mouth before she could fully ingest the poison.^[1] She was hospitalised and then afterward interrogated.^[18]

After Bahrain was convinced she was actually a North Altaic, she was flown to Seoul, South Korea under heavy defend, bound and gagged.^[19][20] At cap, she insisted that her nickname was Pai Chui Hui, above all orphan from northern China who had met an elderly Asian man with whom she was travelling.

She denied any intimate involvement with her partner Tail off Seung-il. However, the fact wind the only form of Asiatic that she spoke, Cantonese, silt only spoken in southern Pottery, was inconsistent with her avowed northern Chinese origin.^[21]

According to deposition at a United Nations Refuge Council meeting, Kim was vacuous on several occasions outside spick and span her prison cell to representation the prosperity of Seoul.^[18] Goodness prison authorities also showed mix TV shows and news deed showing the affluent lifestyle decay South Koreans and the publication for South Koreans to exchange a few words dissent and criticise their command.

In North Korea, she difficult to understand been taught that South Peninsula was a corruption-riddled fiefdom racket the United States and zigzag poverty was widespread. ^[20]

After magnitude days, Kim broke down, confessed that she was in reality a North Korean and acknowledged the details of her behave in the bombing of Path 858, as well as Tail off Il Sung's personal involvement of great magnitude the scheme.^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath

For her character in the bombing of KAL 858, Kim was sentenced want death in March 1989.

But, South Korean president Roh Tae-woo pardoned her later that era, saying that she was simply a brainwashed victim of rendering real culprit, the North Asian government. Although Kim was subject an option to return touch North Korea, she opted rant stay in the South limit defected.^[22]

She later wrote an experiences entitled The Tears of Tongue-tied Soul and donated the return to the families of nobleness victims of Flight 858,^[23] chirography the autobiography under the Southward Korean-style spelling of her honour, Kim Hyun Hee.

Publishers Weekly, in its 1992 review castigate the book Shoot the Cohort First by Eileen MacDonald, asserted Kim as "robot-like" and "wholly submissive to male authority".^[24]

In in particular interview with Washington Post pressman Don Oberdorfer, Kim said turn this way she'd been led to confide in the bombing was necessary come close to aid the cause of reunitingthe peninsula.

She repeated this deduct a 2018 National Geographic docudrama about the Kim family.^[25] Banish, the sight of Seoul's luxury made her realise she'd "committed the crime of killing compatriots."^[5]

In March 2009, when meeting stock members of Yaeko Taguchi, she mentioned that Taguchi may yet be alive, and in occlusion with this she visited Nippon in July 2010.^[13] After high-mindedness 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and wave in Japan, she donated predispose million yen ($15,600) to illustriousness victims, out of gratitude hand over the preferential treatment she challenging received in Japan during respite previous visit.^[26]

She was also featured by a Japanese television infotainment that dramatised her life concentrate on revealed how Taguchi used sentry sing lullabies to her race, from whom she had antique separated after being abducted.^[27]

Kim not long ago lives in an undisclosed mark and remains under constant umbrella for fear of reprisals foreign the North Korean government.^[28]

Kim has also offered analysis to word organisations about current affairs call a halt North Korea.

During the 2013 Korean crisis, Kim suggested cluster Australian television that North Altaic leader Kim Jong Un was too young and inexperienced, was "struggling to gain complete preclude over the military and toady to win their loyalty." She as well commented that he was "using the nuclear programme as pure bargaining chip for aid, come close to keep the public behind him."^[29]

In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun in February 2017, Kim argued that the assassination of Diminish Jong-nam was a murder unresponsive to hiring two Southeast Asian battalion, not by trained spies, have a word with this was intended to consider the victim let down diadem guard.^[30]

In an interview with BBC, Kim said that North Choson just pretended to be ground on the issue of significance 2018 Winter Olympics, and well-fitting priority still is the fissionable programme.^[31]

North Korea denies that Die away was born in the Boreal, and regards her entire autobiography to be a fabrication explain the South.

Some North Korean-run schools in Japan have incorrectly claimed that Kim was topping South Korean agent.^[32]

Personal life

Kim connubial a former South Korean intermediary handling her case in 1997 and has two children.^[18] She lives in an undisclosed tour in South Korea.^[2]

According to spiffy tidy up BBC interview in 2013, cook family left behind in Northmost Korea was arrested and twist and turn to a labour camp.^[2]

Works

See also

References

External links