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May 08, 2009
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| The National Intelligence Service and the National Police Agency raided the headquarters and regional offices of a group described as pro-North Korean and arrested its leaders yesterday. Authorities suspect the group, called the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification, made unauthorized contact with North Korea and engaged in activities glorifying its regime. Lee Gyu-jae, head of the alliance in Seoul, was among six executives arrested yesterday. The group was founded in 1995 with the stated goal of trying to achieve unification on the Korean Peninsula with the help of North Korea. Investigators said yesterday they confiscated documents and computer hard drives from the group’s headquarters and that alliance members were being questioned at the National Intelligence Service for contacting North Koreans and entering North Korea. In 1997, South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled the alliance to be a “pro-enemy” agency detrimental to the national security in the South. The six-hour raid of the alliance’s headquarters in Namyeong-dong, Seoul, began at 6:45 a.m., according to investigators. Simultaneously, they raided regional offices and the homes of the group’s key executives. A police investigator said Seoul police believes members of the alliance received directives from North Korea, which would be in violation of the national security law in the South. “We believe the suspects were in touch with the North from a third country, notably China, and exchanged intelligence,” the investigator said. Kim Se-chang, one of two alliance workers present at the headquarters when the raid took place, said his group has been “a law-abiding agency for the past 13 years. “We received authorization from the Unification Ministry before visiting the North,” Kim said. “Obviously, we receive documents from our North Korean office. But to call that receiving North Korean orders and a violation of the law is to essentially tell us to stop working for unification.” By Yoo Jee-ho, Lee Jeong-bong [jeeho@joongang.co.kr] |
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