Unionists allegedly received protest slogans from North

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office in Yeongtong District, Suwon, Gyeonggi [YONHAP]

Prosecutors requested arrest warrants for four former and current leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) for allegedly contacting North Korean agents overseas.

The Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office applied for the warrants on Thursday, accusing the unionists of violating the National Security Act.

Prosecutors are seeking to arrest a high-ranking official at the KCTU surnamed Seok, an official at the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union surnamed Kim, a former high-ranking official of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union surnamed Kim and the owner of a so-called "peace shelter" on Jeju Island surnamed Shin.

The “peace shelter” is dedicated to the victims of the Sewol passenger ferry, which capsized off Korea's southern coast in April 2014 while en route to Jeju, killing 299 passengers.

Seok is accused of being in touch with multiple North Korean agents — including Ri Kwang-jin, who has reportedly infiltrated South Korea several times since the 1990s — in overseas locations such as Guangzhou, China; Hanoi, Vietnam and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Ri is also believed to have been heavily involved with three other South Koreans who were arrested in 2021 on charges of violating the National Security Act.

Raids by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the National Police Agency on the KCTU members' offices in Jan. 18 turned up multiple pieces of evidence that Seok had been receiving instructions from North Korea, as well as sending reports to North Korean intelligence.

The NIS suspects Seok had recruited and was running the other three accused spies.

Kim, an official at the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union, is accused of meeting with North Korean agents in Hanoi in 2019 while the other Kim and Shin are believed to have met in Phnom Penh in 2017.

The NIS accuses the four members of having been in constant communication with the North, receiving instructions and sending reports over 100 times.

They allegedly used foreign e-mail accounts and shared passwords to access online cloud services.

The search warrant issued on Jan. 18 allowed investigators to look for “documented instructions from North Korea and the steganography program” that hides secretive documents in images.

The NIS also suspects that agents from North Korea even sent Seok specific protest slogans to be used at anti-government demonstrations, additionally asking him to lead the organization "in the way North Korea wants.”

North Korean agents are believed to have sent protest slogans for demonstrations that followed last October's deadly Itaewon crowd crush, including “Resignation is the way to commemorate the dead” and “Koreans are dying.”

In one document the North sent to Seok on Nov. 15, the North said that calls for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to step down "have shaken the city of Seoul,” and that it reminded them "of the protests demanding the truth behind the Sewol ferry disaster that led to Park Geun-hye’s impeachment."

An arrest warrant review for the four will be held next week.

BY CHOI MO-RAN, CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]