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June 25, 2009
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The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office indicted three progressive unification activists on charges of contacting North Korean spies and acting under Pyongyang’s orders, the prosecutors said yesterday. According to the prosecution, Lee Gyu-jae, head of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification’s South Korean headquarters; Lee Gyeong-won, the group’s secretary general; and Choi Eun-a, its propaganda official, faced charges of violating the National Security Law. The three were indicted with pretrial detention, the prosecution said. The South’s Unification Ministry accused the three men of obtaining permits to visit North Korea and contacting North Koreans by pretending that they were organizing civilian exchanges for the two Koreas between November 2004 and November 2007. They contacted agents of the North’s United Front Department of the Workers’ Party at Mount Kumgang and other places in the North, acting under the North’s orders, the prosecutors said. Pyongyang ordered them to promote the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South and support the North’s possession of nuclear arms, according to the prosecution. “Lee Gyu-jae and the other two filed applications under different groups’ names because the Unification Ministry does not allow the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification members to visit the North since it has already been identified as an anti-state organization,” a prosecution source said. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled the alliance to be a “pro-enemy” agency detrimental to the South’s national security. The Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification was established in 1990 by unification activists from the two Koreas and overseas. About 31 progressive groups, labor unions and political parties are members. Prosecutors said the three were also in telephone contact with a North Korean agent in Japan from 2003 to this year and received orders and provided reports to the North. The Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification played a role as a communication channel for pro-North groups in the South, the prosecution argued. The Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification held a press conference yesterday to refute the prosecution’s allegations, saying the Unification Ministry had approved the organization’s operations under the law governing inter-Korean exchanges. By Ser Myo-ja, Lee Chul-jae [myoja@joongang.co.kr] |
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