N. Korea deepens probe of detained S. Korean worker: state media

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By Sam Kim
SEOUL, May 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is deepening its investigation into a South
Korean worker it has detained at a joint industrial complex for over a month, its
state media reported Friday.

The report also quoted an unnamed official in the North Korean border town of
Kaesong as warning of grave "consequences" should South Korea continue to raise
allegations of human rights violations over the detention.
The employee of Hyundai Asan, the main developer of the Kaesong industrial park,
was detained on March 30 on charges of denouncing the North's political system
and trying to lure a local female worker to defect.
North Korea has refused to grant South Korea access to the worker, who has been
identified only as a man in his 40s whose last name is Yu.
"A competent institution is now carrying on a deep-going investigation into the
case," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, quoting the spokesman for the
Central Special Zone Development Guidance General Bureau.
Accusing South Korea of "shameless sophism and a plot to falsify the truth," the
official said Yu has violated North Korea's dignity and sovereignty, an act that
merits "no mercy."
"Yu malignantly slandered the dignified system in the DPRK," the official was
quoted as saying, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
North Korea will hold all South Korean media and authorities "fully accountable
for all the ensuing consequences" if they continue to raise allegations of human
rights violations, the official said.
About 100 labor-intensive South Korean companies operate in Kaesong, just an
hour's drive from Seoul, employing nearly 40,000 North Korean workers.
The factory park is the last remaining reconciliatory project between the Koreas,
which remain technically at war as 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.
North Korea also continues to detain two U.S. journalists, whom it says illegally
entered its territory along the border with China in March.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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