Hyundai worker's detention caused by remarks about N.K. leader: family

SEOUL, Aug. 14 (Yonhap) -- A Hyundai Asan Corp. worker who returned to Seoul
after more than four months of captivity in North Korea was originally detained
after making remarks about the country's leader and its regime, his brother
insisted Friday.

Little information has been available about the circumstances leading to the
detention of Yu Seong-jin, 44, except for vague accounts provided by North Korea
to the South Korean government. The North claimed Yu had criticized the North's
political system and tried to entice a local woman to defect to South Korea.
His elder brother, Yu Seong-gwon, said the unmarried Hyundai Asan engineer was
taken into custody for talking about the North Korean leader and his family,
including his third and youngest son Jong-un, reportedly the heir-apparent. Such
talk is highly taboo in the communist state.
"Talking about Kim Jong-il is forbidden in North Korea, but my brother says he
talked about Kim Jong-il, his sister and Kim Jong-un. He criticized them before
the people who worked with him," the elder Yu said over the telephone.
Yu, who worked as a boiler mechanic at an inter-Korean industrial park in North
Korea's border town of Kaesong, was reunited with his family on Thursday after
137 days of incommunicado detention in the North. His release came days after
Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai Asan's parent, Hyundai Group, traveled to
Pyongyang to press for his case. Days earlier, North Korea had pardoned two
detained American journalists during a visit by former U.S. President Bill
Clinton.
Yu was arrested at the Kaesong complex on March 30 before being placed in
isolation at an unidentified inn in the North Korean border city, according to
the elder Yu.
"He said he remained alone, having no contact with other persons," the elder Yu
said. "He said he had endured hardships by praying."
In the morning of March 30, North Korean authorities approached Yu, read a notice
and immediately took him into custody, according to the brother. The notice
accused him of criticizing the North Korean political system in front of other
workers at the park, the brother said.
"He was not reached by (South Korean) government authorities or Hyundai Asan. He
had to do as North Korea told him," he said.
Yu was not informed of his release until the last minute. At around 3 p.m.
Thursday, a North Korean official came without notice and ordered him to follow,
the brother said.
"My brother did not know where he was going and did not know until the last
minute before he was released," he said. Yu crossed the military demarcation line
into South Korea at around 8:30 p.m.
Throughout his captivity, however, North Korea "treated and fed him well," he said.
Before handing him over to Hyundai just north of the border, a North Korean
official read the results of an investigation into the charges against him, which
have not yet been made public.
Yu is currently receiving medical attention at a hospital in southern Seoul,
though officials say he is generally in good health. Unification Minister Hyun
In-taek paid a visit to Yu Friday morning to wish him well.
His aged and ailing parents, unable to travel far, watched their son's return on
a television in their southern rural home.
Yu's release, a rare fence-mending gesture from North Korea, removes a major
roadblock in frayed inter-Korean relations.
The joint park, developed by Hyundai Asan, hosts more than 100 South Korean firms
which employ about 40,000 North Korean workers, producing clothing, kitchenware,
electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods.
In a separate case, four South Korean fishermen are still being held in North
Korea. Their boat strayed into North Korean waters in the East Sea on July 30.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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