ID :
40492
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 09:07
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/40492
The shortlink copeid
N. Korea releases Japanese drug suspect after five years of captivity
(ATTN: ADDS from 4th para for background, minor changes)
SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday released a Japanese man it has
been holding since 2003 for allegedly attempting to smuggle drugs, Pyongyang's
news agency said.
Yoshiaki Sawada, former department director of the Enterprise Co., Ltd, of Japan,
was sent home "thanks to a humanitarian measure," the Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) said.
Shortly after the man's arrest in Oct. 2003, North Korea had released a
preliminary investigation result saying he tried to lure North Koreans into
buying drugs in a third country and shipping them to Japan through a North Korean
ferry running between North Korea's western Wonsan port and Japan's eastern
Niigata port.
Japan's news media had suggested Sawadi was a member of a major Japanese Yakuza
gang.
Tokyo dispatched a foreign ministry delegation to Pyongyang in January 2004, but
talks for Sawada's release broke down without results.
Tuesday's report did not elaborate on details of Sawada's crime but said the
investigation "clearly proved the truth behind a despicable plot hatched by a
Japanese plot-breeding organization."
The report said, without identifying its name, the Japanese organization tried to
damage the prestige of North Korea and the General Association of Korean
Residents in Japan, a pro-Pyongyang network of ethnic Koreans in Japan.
"The suspected man frankly admitted his crime and relations with those forces
behind the operation and made a sincere apology for his wrongdoing," KCNA said.
Japan suspended services by North Korean ferry, the Mangyongbong-92, in 2006 as
part of its broader economic sanctions against Pyongyang over the Japanese
abductee issue.
In a summit with his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi in 2002, North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il admitted that Pyongyang's agents kidnapped Japanese citizens
in the 1970s and 80s to train spies. Kim apologized and said he had punished
those responsible.
But the revelation stoked more anger in Japan, which believes more Japanese
citizens were abducted than Pyongyang has admitted.
Amid the frozen relations, Japan extended its North Korea sanctions for the third
time in October.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday released a Japanese man it has
been holding since 2003 for allegedly attempting to smuggle drugs, Pyongyang's
news agency said.
Yoshiaki Sawada, former department director of the Enterprise Co., Ltd, of Japan,
was sent home "thanks to a humanitarian measure," the Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) said.
Shortly after the man's arrest in Oct. 2003, North Korea had released a
preliminary investigation result saying he tried to lure North Koreans into
buying drugs in a third country and shipping them to Japan through a North Korean
ferry running between North Korea's western Wonsan port and Japan's eastern
Niigata port.
Japan's news media had suggested Sawadi was a member of a major Japanese Yakuza
gang.
Tokyo dispatched a foreign ministry delegation to Pyongyang in January 2004, but
talks for Sawada's release broke down without results.
Tuesday's report did not elaborate on details of Sawada's crime but said the
investigation "clearly proved the truth behind a despicable plot hatched by a
Japanese plot-breeding organization."
The report said, without identifying its name, the Japanese organization tried to
damage the prestige of North Korea and the General Association of Korean
Residents in Japan, a pro-Pyongyang network of ethnic Koreans in Japan.
"The suspected man frankly admitted his crime and relations with those forces
behind the operation and made a sincere apology for his wrongdoing," KCNA said.
Japan suspended services by North Korean ferry, the Mangyongbong-92, in 2006 as
part of its broader economic sanctions against Pyongyang over the Japanese
abductee issue.
In a summit with his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi in 2002, North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il admitted that Pyongyang's agents kidnapped Japanese citizens
in the 1970s and 80s to train spies. Kim apologized and said he had punished
those responsible.
But the revelation stoked more anger in Japan, which believes more Japanese
citizens were abducted than Pyongyang has admitted.
Amid the frozen relations, Japan extended its North Korea sanctions for the third
time in October.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
