Accused spies for North Korea likely face imminent arrest

North Korea

Published: 30 Jan. 2023, 18:32

Accused spies for North Korea likely face imminent arrest

Protesters outside the National Intelligence Service's regional branch in Changwon, South Gyeongsang on Monday demand the release of four individuals detained on suspicion of conducting seditious activities on behalf of North Korea. [YONHAP]

Prosecutors will likely file arrest warrants Tuesday against four individuals accused of conducting seditious activities on behalf of North Korea after a court struck down earlier warrant requests.

The four individuals were detained by officials from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and police on Saturday on suspicion of violating the National Security Act, which bans behavior or speech that expresses support for the North Korean regime or communism or advocates the overthrow of the South Korean government.

The Seoul Central District Court rejected the prosecution’s initial warrant requests on Sunday after finding that the four people detained by counterintelligence officials were unfairly treated in the process of being taken into custody.

The court’s rejection of the prosecution’s arrest warrants gives investigators 48 hours to file another warrant application before the suspects must be released.

Investigators believe the four individuals, based in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, established an underground organization called the Self-Reliant People’s Liberation Front in 2016.

The four, who are also members of a liberal South Gyeongsang political organization, are accused of organizing anti-U.S. protests and activities in support of North Korean athletes at the behest of orders from North Korean intelligence agents, whom they are suspected of meeting in various Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia.

Their arrest came as South Korean counterintelligence authorities began an expansive effort to investigate allegations that high-ranking members of several left-leaning South Korean organizations, including the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), actively collaborated with North Korean intelligence agents to foment unrest in the South.

The country’s spy agency and police carried out numerous raids last week on the KCTU’s headquarters in Jung District, central Seoul, as well the homes of four former and current KCTU executives in South Jeolla and Gyeonggi, the headquarters of the KCTU-affiliated Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul, and a so-called “peace shelter” on Jeju Island — all to investigate allegations that trade union officials violated the National Security Act.

According to South Korean counterintelligence officials who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo on condition of anonymity, the NIS and police agency’s investigation centers on a KCTU executive and three others suspected of meeting with a North Korean agent from the Cultural Exchange Bureau, a department of Pyongyang’s ruling Workers’ Party, on multiple occasions from 2016 to 2019.

That bureau is responsible for conducting espionage operations against South Korea and establishing underground political organizations aimed at overthrowing the government in Seoul.

The KCTU has strongly protested the raids, claiming they represent “a crackdown by public security officials against the labor movement.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]