North Korea, in its first response to the defection of a senior diplomat to South Korea, branded the deputy envoy as an embezzler, child rapist and all around “human scum”.
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Thae is the highest-ranking diplomat to defect from North Korea to the South, Seoul said.
Thae, who lived in London for nearly a decade, is the first person to defect from the embassy, which was established in 2003.
The South Korean Unification Ministry this week announced the defection, saying Thae had cited disillusionment with the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a yearning for South Korea’s democracy, and the future of his children as his reasons for defecting.
The DPRK had recalled him in June to put him under investigation, and on July 12, the country’s Central Procuratorate made a decision to start a probe, the KCNA added.
KCNA didn’t identify Thae by name, but said North Korea had ordered the “fugitive” who had worked at the embassy in Britain to return to the North in June to be investigated for a series of crimes, including embezzling government funds, leaking state secrets and sexually assaulting a minor.
The North’s prosecution authorities issued a legal document on starting the investigation on July 12, KCNA said.
The fugitive should have received legal punishment for the crimes he committed, but he discarded the fatherland that raised him and even his own parents and brothers by fleeing.
“He thus revealed himself as human scum bereft of elementary sense of moral obligation and conscience”, it added.
Thae Yong-ho, a deputy envoy in the secretive dictatorship’s United Kingdom embassy, was given protection by South Korea along with his family.
According to Park, Yong Ho is a son of a North Korean general and was a member of the country’s elite.
“By attacking Thae and Seoul through the KCNA it is expressing its views without running the risk of ordinary people knowing about the desertion”, he said.
In a previous speech, Mr Thae said Britons were brainwashed by their ruling class into believing “shocking, terrifying” lies about the communist country.
Overall, the number of defectors, mostly from the area near North Koreas border with China, has declined since Kim Jong-un took power following his father Kim Jong-ils death in late 2011.
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The KCNA generally focuses on broadcasting Pyongyang’s messages overseas and is not accessible to ordinary North Koreans.
