A source affiliated with North Korean Refugees Solidarity group headquartered in England says Tae was a leading figure in filing written reports back to North Korea on the movements and activities of defectors.
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The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang Yop, a senior ruling Workers’ Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Il.
A high-profile North Korean diplomat in the United Kingdom has defected and fled overseas.
The younger son’s classmate was quoted by the Guardian as saying that his North Korean friend, who was reportedly born in Denmark and came to London four years ago, had vanished in mid-July and all his social network accounts went dark. He led a North Korean delegation that held talks with European Union representatives over the North’s human rights situation in Brussels in 2001, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. He also pointed out that Thae was seen escorting Kim Jong-chul – the older brother of North Korea’s supreme leader – when he attended an Eric Clapton concertat London’s Royal Albert Hall.
After unusual group defection and four-month sequestering, group released individually, Ministry says The 13 North Koreans (one manager, 12 waitresses) who were part of a group defection in April from the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, China, were recently released from the Defector Protection Center (formerly the Joint Interrogation Center) following their interrogation by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Hankyoreh confirmed on August 16.
What’s life really like in North Korea?
It was claimed in March this year that a family park behind the North Korea’s modest suburban London embassy had become a hotspot for dogging – public al fresco sex hookups.
All North Korean defectors who make it to Seoul undergo an intense, months-long de-briefing at the hands of South Korean intelligence – largely in an effort to root out any potential spies.
Mr Jeong declined to reveal Mr Thae’s defection route, citing the diplomatic sensitivities involved for the concerned countries.
Thae told South Korean officials that he defected because of his disillusionment with Kim Jong Un’s regime and his yearning for freedom, Jeong said. Jeong added that Thae was now under South Korean protection.
The official announcement of Thae’s defection will embarrass the Kim Jong-un leadership in Pyongyang, especially the signal that unity among its elite in Pyongyang is crumbling.
“I don’t blame reporters”, Thae said during a speech in late 2014. In 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled but resettled in the United States.
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North Korea allows only citizens deemed most loyal to the regime to travel overseas, so Thae’s fleeing marks the latest in a series of embarrassing defections.
