Former N. Korean terrorist meets family of Japanese abductee

(ATTN: UPDATES with Kim's press conference; RESTRUCTURES throughout)
By Lee Chi-dong
BUSAN, March 11 (Yonhap) -- Kim Hyun-hui, a self-confessed North Korean terrorist
responsible for the mid-air bombing of a South Korean jet in 1987 and now a
housewife living in South Korea, stepped into the spotlight again Wednesday in an
emotional meeting with the family of a Japanese woman kidnapped by Pyongyang
three decades ago.
With cropped hair and dressed in black jacket and pants, Kim hugged the son of
Yaeko Taguchi, who was abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 to train spies,
and clasped the hands of Taguchi's elder brother in front of more than 100
reporters, photographers, and camera crew who packed a huge room at the Busan
convention center. South Korean and Japanese authorities picked the facility,
instead of a hotel, as the venue for the meeting due to security concerns. Police
commandos were deployed around the building.
The event in this southern port city bolstered Tokyo's efforts to garner support
at home and abroad to press North Korea to resolve the abduction issue, which
involves more than a dozen Japanese nationals.
"I have no doubt your mother is still alive. Be hopeful," Kim told Taguchi's son
Koichi Iizuka in Japanese, as she wiped away tears with a handkerchief during the
brief and slightly awkward media photo session. Iizuka was a baby when her
mother, 22 at the time, was abducted. He is now 32 years old.
Kim said earlier that she had lived with Taguchi for more than a year in the
early 1980s to learn Japanese language and culture. North Korea claims Taguchi
died in 1986 in a car crash.
The three held a press conference after a closed-door meeting that lasted about
90 minutes.
Wednesday's event marked Kim's first public appearance since 1991, when she
provided details about the attack on the airliner in a nationally-televised press
conference, although she has since been engaged in other closed-door activities.
Kim, as expected, faced a barrage of questions about her knowledge of Japanese
abductees and her role in the Korean Air bombing.
Kim said adamantly that she planted the time bomb in the jetliner at the
instruction of the communist regime, an attack that killed all 115 passengers and
crew on board. Kim and her accomplice boarded the plane in Baghdad but slipped
off during a stopover in the Gulf after leaving a time bomb in an overhead
compartment, according to the results of the South Korean intelligence agency's
probe at that time. They were arrested when they tried to leave Bahrain using
fake Japanese passports. Both of them immediately swallowed cyanide capsules. The
man died at the scene but Kim survived and was taken to South Korea.
There has been a lingering rumor that the incident might have been planned by the
then South Korean military ruler for political gains in the presidential election
year.
"It is regrettable that (some of the bereaved families) still don't realize who
caused the incident 20 years ago," she said. "The Korean Air incident was a
terrorist act by North Korea. I would like to say that I am not a fake figure."
Kim, who was sentenced to death but later pardoned, had lived a reclusive life
in a South Korean city after marrying her South Korean bodyguard in 1997 amid
reports that she was at odds with the previous liberal government of President
Roh Moo-hyun, which questioned Kim's involvement in the airline bombing.
When asked about her view on the former administration, Kim refused to go into
details.
"I am just waiting for the results of the ongoing investigation by the current
government into what the former government did," she said without elaborating.
On the fate of Taguchi, Kim gave no additional information beyond what she
disclosed in her previous interviews with some South Korean and Japanese media.
"I think North Korea got her to get married in 1986. I have not heard about her
spouse," Kim said.
Kim said the Japanese government needs to provide face-saving measures for North
Korea and win the "hearts of North Koreans" to resolve the issue of Japanese
nationals abducted by Pyongyang.
Tokyo says at least 17 Japanese citizens were abducted by North Korean agents in
the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, the North acknowledged abducting only 13 Japanese
citizens and allowed five of them to return home, saying the others had died, a
claim disputed by Tokyo.
"If efforts for their repatriation continue, I think a miracle may happen," she
said.
Wednesday's event was arranged at Kim's request. The Japanese government welcomed
her decision and asked for cooperation from the South Korean government which
protects Kim.
Kim, now 47, gave no clear answer when asked why she wanted to publicly meet
Taguchi's family at this particular time.
Her meeting with Taguchi's family is expected to revive public interest in the
abduction issue, as former U.S. President George W. Bush's meeting with the
mother of another Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota at the White House did in 2006.
Shigeo Iizuka, Taguchi's brother, said that Wednesday's event would serve as a
stepping stone for joint efforts by South Korea and Japan to resolve the issue of
citizens kidnapped by the North.
Japan, a member of the six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea, is
holding back on its portion of energy aid to Pyongyang, demanding the North first
account for all of the suspected kidnappings and the whereabouts of the victims.
Tokyo fiercely protested a U.S. decision last year to remove North Korea from its
list of states sponsoring terrorism without a full resolution of the abduction
issue.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)