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Prosecutors demand 15 years for Nork spies
SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors demanded 15-year jail terms Wednesday for two North Korean spies accused of attempting to assassinate a high-ranking North Korean defector who has been criticizing his home country and its top leader.The two defendants, known only as Kim, 36, and Tong, 34, were arrested in April on charges of plotting to kill Hwang Jang-yop, former secretary of the North's ruling Workers' Party and chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly. They arrived in Seoul last December disguised as defectors on orders by the North's reconnaissance unit in charge of espionage operations against South Korea to find and kill Hwang. The defendants testified earlier that they were told the defector should not be allowed to die a natural death. During the heavily guarded trial at the Seoul Central District Court, prosecutors said Hwang's assassination would have been a "humiliation" for the South, a show of a weakness in its system, because the defector has been a "symbol of the superiority of South Korea's free democracy over North Korea's socialism. Hwang, 88, defected to South Korea in 1997 and has received repeated death threats for criticizing his former boss, Kim Jong-il. The location of his residence is not publicly known, and South Korean police keep him under round-the-clock surveillance. Prosecutors said the demanded sentence was not a punishment of the defendants but "a warning to the planned crime and the North's spy agency." In giving a final statement, Kim said he "has the mind to want a hard-working life under the South Korean system." Tong did not have anything to say. Posted by: Steve White 2010-06-24 |
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