E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
AFP - Getty Images file
Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The photo was photo taken June 4, 2010 as he was talking to members of the South Korean press about the need for the North to reform in order to avert economic collapse, and the end of its political regime. He lives mainly in Macau.
Prosecutors in South Korea have filed spying charges against a North Korean who they say was involved in plotting to assassinate Kim Jong Nam — the wayward son of former dictator Kim Jong Il — the French news agency AFP reported.
The authorities said the suspected spy arrived in South Korea in the spring posing as a defector who fled the communist-ruled North by way of China, the report said.
When his identity was exposed, he confessed to being part of a failed plot to stage a hit-and-run car accident in China in 2010 targeting Kim Jong Nam, who lives mainly in the Chinese territory of Macau, the report said.
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo reported that when the man was arrested in late September he told authorities that he was under instructions to settle in South Korea and await orders. He later said he was ordered to seek out Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist who sends anti-Pyongyang messages across the border to North Korea via helium balloons.
Kim Jong Nam is the eldest of four known offspring of Kim Jong Il and has been living mainly in the Chinese gambling mecca of Macau for more than a decade. He has also been spotted periodically in Beijing where he reportedly owns another home.
Jong Nam is thought to have fallen out of favor with his father and his secretive regime in 2001, when he botched an effort to enter Japan on a false passport, reportedly because he wanted to visit Tokyo's Disneyland.
His younger half-brother, Kim Jung Un, thought to be about 28, has assumed the top positions in North Korea's government, Communist party and military after their father’s death in late 2011.
Kim Jong Nam has spoken to members of the international press corps on occasion, discussing the need for economic reform in North Korea and asserting his opinion that the dynastic succession will not work in his homeland.
South Korea’s press has recently noted that Kim Jong Nam has largely disappeared from the public eye since shortly after his father’s death in December 2011.
Kim Jong Un is the third in the family to rule the isolated totalitarian country following his father and grandfather Kim Il Sung.
Three years of fighting between China-backed North Korea and U.S.-backed South Korea ended with an armistice in 1953, but the two sides are technically still at war and divided by a demilitarized zone near the 38th parallel.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Deadly crossing: Death toll rises among those desperate for American Dream
- Hong Kong residents unhappy after US allows visa-free travel for Taiwanese
- Romney: Risk of conflict higher in Mideast after Obama policies
- NBC's Kerry Sanders answers questions about Chavez's re-election
Leave a Comment:
This is how poor and desperate North Korea has become.
They hired a Dom Deluise impersonator.
An amazing likeness! I suspect Mr. DeLuise is a LOT smarter.
This is all China's doing. Had they not interfered and attacked us directly at the Chosin Reservoir this would have been long done and buried. North Korea is only around because China wants it there.
"North Korea is only around because China wants it there"
Couldn't agree more. North Korea enhances the importance of Peking by according China a special "prestige" on the global forum through its unique ability to rein in the rogue state.
Without China, impoverished North Korea has as much chance of survival as a snow flake in a volcano.
He looks like he is well fed.
Does EVERY man in north and south korea HAVE to be named KIM ?
Kim, Park, and Lee are the most common family names in Korea. Likewise Khan in Pakistan; Singh in the Punjab; and the ubiquitous suffix "ian" in virtually every Armenian surname. Sorry, off topic
Kim is their last name. The last name comes before the first name. (John Doe = Doe John) This the same way in Japan and China too.
Sounds better than Farquhar Jong Nam
Kim Jong Nam is unfortunately a marked man ala Salaman Rushdie. It's all very complicated. It was due to the fact that he was caught trying to have fun in Japan which to North Koreans would be vile treachery. If you are a North Korean the only fun you would be having in Japan is if you were murdering everyone there with flamethrowers. There is no peace. There is no diplomacy. There is no 'friendly fraternizing'. You live to kill and terrorize them. Period. North Koreans even hate Americans less then the Japanese. Maybe even far less. They'll let Americans in on rare occasions. You can not fathom the hate they have for Japan.
For his actions Kim Jong Nam is held in lower regard than let's say a pedophile. That's how deep it goes.
That all may be true, but let's be fair about this: to North Korea, lots of things are vile treachery, including reconciliation, criticism of the regime, protesting inhumane treatment, reading foreign news, having children with non-Koreans, and most businesses. Japan has a special place in the regime's dark hearts as an enemy because they don't have to do nearly as much lying to establish a history of victimization.
How do we know that Kim Jong Nam is not secretly working for the North Koreans?
If he's working at all it is a well-kept secret.
Who cares if he is? It's not like he's accomplishing anything other than slinging obvious criticisms at his home country. Only a state as paranoid and wretched as North Korea would bother with him.
I thought that was Bobby Lee from SNL!
Well, the defective - er - defector failed in his mission. Send him back so they can punish his sorry a$$.
I first said the 'defector' was probably a spy. That is now obvious because North Korea has not said one word about any officers being murdered along the DMZ, and if that had actually happened, considering the north's hair trigger, all hell would have already broken loose. The north would have blamed the south for the murders and an attack of some description in some other part of the country would have already taken place. You have to be better then North Korea to play that game.
This is a different defector: the soldier who supposedly killed his superiors reached SK recently. This one "defected" in the spring. There are a lot of them, so it is rather hard to keep track.
Additionally, NK might want to keep an incident like that quiet, so as to avoid hurting morale in the army. And they definitely don't want anybody inquiring how the soldier is being treated in South Korea.
Man, two assassination targets and he couldn't get EITHER of them? Not to mention he spilled right away. Apparently North Korea really can't train anybody sufficiently except for nuclear engineers.
It's so hard to find good help these days.
South Korea also has some people who are very effective at getting answers from suspects
Hire a Witcher or Ezio. They get the job done right.
oh ~oppa ~oppa gunna cap ya PYONGYANG STYLE !
poorly written article, as clear as mud.