[USFK Forums] '16 Koreans connected to Hara abduction' [Yomiuri]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Saturday, March 25, 2006

'16 Koreans connected to Hara abduction'

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Saturday,, March 25, 2006

A North Korean agent wanted for the 1980 abduction of Tadaaki Hara received financial and other assistance necessary to conduct the abduction from at least 16 pro-Pyongyang ethnic Koreans living in Japan, according to police sources.

Metropolitan Police Department investigators plan to question those suspected of acting as accomplices and providing shelter to Sin Gwang Su, who sneaked into Japan many times between 1973 and 1985, to uncover the true scale of a network of North Korean agents that helped in the abductions of Japanese.

Among the 16 is a 74-year-old former senior official of an organization under the umbrella of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), who owned a Chinese restaurant in Osaka where Hara worked before he disappeared.

According to investigative sources and trial records from Sin's court hearings in South Korea, Sin, 76, was given the name of a North Korean woman living in Osaka by a superior before he came to Japan and told to persuade her to assist him.

When Sin first sneaked into Japan in July 1973, he visited the woman and used the second floor of her home as a hideout. He met with a Chongryon official after speaking with North Koreans living nearby.

This official introduced Sin to four people who would assist in Hara's abduction, including a 78-year-old former convict who now lives on Jeju island, South Korea.

Three members of a pro-Pyongyang business organization in Osaka under Chongryon's umbrella also were drawn into the operation, and the former chairman of the organization provided them with money to recruit more accomplices and fund their espionage activities. The chairman died in 2001, aged 85.

In January 1981, a member of the Shiga Prefecture office of the Korean Residents Union in Japan, a pro-Seoul organization, provided Sin with information on several people in South Korea who might help him.

Several others reportedly were involved in passing Sin orders from North Korea.

Meanwhile, Hara's 79-year-old brother Koichi welcomed the MPD's search of several locations for links to Tadaaki's abduction.

"This is a big step forward, and I'm grateful for the efforts of the police," he said Thursday at his home in Nagasaki. "I hope this will lead to a positive outcome [regarding the abduction]."



(Mar. 25, 2006)