Former Captive in North Korea Claims He Was a NIS and CIA Spy
It seems that an outsider like this operating in North Korea would be closely watched by the Kim regime making any espionage attempts extremely risky:
A former prisoner in North Korea has told German media that he used to spy for the CIA, seeking out nuclear secrets and taking pictures with a concealed wristwatch camera.
In a TV report by public broadcaster NDR, South Korean-born US citizen Kim Dong-chul, 67, recounts his former espionage operations, arrest and the abuse and torture he suffered behind bars.
“I approached military officers and scientists who I knew needed money,” Kim says in the programme, showing crooked fingers that he claims were broken by soldiers’ boots during his interrogation.
Kim Dong-chul was one of three American detainees freed by Pyongyang in May 2018, in the lead-up to the first summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The ex-prisoner has since told South Korean media that he used to gather information for the country’s National Intelligence Service and the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The businessman and former Christian missionary had become a trusted insider in North Korea, where from 2001 he ran a hotel in the Rason special economic zone near the China and Russia borders.
He was arrested in October 2015 after he reportedly received a USB stick containing nuclear-linked data and other military information from a former North Korean soldier.
In April 2016 he was sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour for subversion and espionage.
In the TV programme, he reports that after the 2011 death of former leader Kim Jong Il, he was recruited by a CIA agent in South Korea.
AFP
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