Intelligence officers and prosecutors are on the lookout for any other North Korean spies who disguise themselves as defectors after they on Tuesday arrested two agents who had orders to assassinate a senior North Korean defector here. "We're keeping track of a few suspicious refugees who are suspected to have sneaked into the South disguised as defectors to gather intelligence, unlike the two agents arrested recently who came to commit terror," a source told the Chosun Ilbo. Agents have infiltrated the South since the North launched the new integrated Reconnaissance Bureau early last year, the source added.
The arrest of the two would-be killers of Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary of the North Korean Workers Party, will probably cause any other North Korean agents to lie low for the time being, the source said, "but there's always a chance that they will attempt to contact sleeper spies in the South."
Prosecutors are questioning Kim Myong-ho (36) and Tong Myong-kwan (36), the two special agents from the Reconnaissance Bureau, to find out more. They testified they came here on direct orders to "cut Hwang's head off."
| The Times says the two gentlemen were majors in the Korean People's Army. They also say 2,800 North Koreans defected to South Korea in 2008. Presumably more have defected since. |
Kim and Tong had trained to use the identities of dead North Koreans and prepared to sneak into the South disguised as refugees since 2006 or 2007. They had also received English-language training using educational materials published in South Korea in preparation for sneaking into the South, prosecutors said.
| But despite no doubt extensive training, they were unable to fool their South Korean interviewers. Could it be that the South Korean materials were incomplete? |