| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| New evidence on disappearance of 1979 SKor spy chief |
| 2005-02-20 |
| New light has been shed on the mysterious disappearance of the longest-serving head of South Korea's intelligence agency, last seen in Paris in 1979. According to an unidentified intelligence officer quoted by a South Korean newspaper, the former spy chief was murdered by a French hitman hired by the South Korean government. Kim Hyung-Wook, who served as the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) from 1963 to 1969, was a one-time favorite and confidant of Park Chung-Hee, South Korea's president who took power in a military coup. But by the late 1970s an increasingly autocratic Park had fallen out with Kim, who had become an outspoken critic of the South Korean leader's dictatorial rule. Kim vanished mysteriously when he was travelling in Paris alone and was last seen at a casino in the French capital on October 7, 1979. "I've learned that the former KCIA director was murdered by Mafia hired by the KCIA," a former senior intelligence officer was quoted as telling Seoul's Hankyoreh daily Saturday. "Eight KCIA members were involved in this operation and all are still alive," said the unidentified former spy, who worked at the National Intelligence Service (NIS) during former president Kim Dae-Jung's administration of 1998-2003. He told the left-of-center newspaper there was a "high possibility" that the body of Kim Hyung-Wook was disposed of in an unmarked grave somewhere in France. The disappearance of Kim occurred during one of the murkiest passages in modern Korean history. The KCIA, which has since changed its name to the National Intelligence Agency, was at the time headed by Kim Jae-Kyu, who was himself arrested and executed for the assassination of president Park only a few weeks after the mysterious disappearance of the former spy chief. The death of Park sparked another military coup which brought Chun Doo-Hwan to power in 1980 and paved the way for another military general, Roh Tae-Woo, to take over as his successor in 1987. There have been persistent rumors in South Korea over the years that Kim Hyung-Wook was murdered after a falling out with president Park. |
| Posted by:Steve White |