Paper says 20 elite escaped from North

About 20 members of the North Korean military and scientific elite, including one of Pyeongyang’s key nuclear scientists, have escaped from the Stalinist state and defected, according to an Australian newspaper.
The Weekend Australian April 19th edition, citing anonymous sources close to the operation, said the defectors were smuggled out of China to Nauru, a tiny island in the Pacific. They are now believed to be under Western government protection in the West and in Southeast Asia.
The defections, which began last October, were supported by 11 countries, including Nauru, the United States and Spain, who provided documents, protection and support to the defectors, the paper said.
According to the paper, the defectors include Kyong Won-ha, called the father of the North Korean nuclear program. “Debriefings of Mr. Kyong are said to have given intelligence officials unprecedented insight into North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, particularly at Yeongbyeon,” the paper said.
According to the newspaper, the program to spirit the officials out of North Korea began in October 2002. An American lawyer, identified by the New York Post as Philip Gagner, reportedly asked the president of Nauru for help in aiding North Korean defectors in China and said he was acting at the U.S. government’s request.
Nauru, an independent island nation in the South Pacific, opened an embassy in Beijing with third-government financing to support the defectors with the embassy’s diplomatic immunity, the newspaper added.
The JoongAng Ilbo yesterday interviewed Martin Chulov, one of the Australian reporters who broke the story. Mr. Chulov said he was tipped off by a Western source in Beijing and confirmed the story with other sources.

by Choi Won-ki