Japan plans to ask Interpol to get alleged N. Korean abductor

Japan Policy & Politics, August 5, 2002

TOKYO, Aug. 1 Kyodo

The Tokyo metropolitan police plans to ask the Interpol to put a former North Korean agent on the international wanted list on suspicion of obtaining a Japanese passport by assuming the identity of a Japanese man believed to have been abducted to North Korea, police sources said Wednesday.

Japanese authorities suspect the North Korean agent, Sin Guang Ju, was involved in the disappearance of Tadaaki Hara, a 43-year-old employee of a Chinese restaurant in Osaka, from the shores of Miyazaki Prefecture during a trip to Kyushu in June 1980.

Hara is one of the 11 Japanese nationals the Japanese government believes were kidnapped to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Tokyo police move came on the same day as Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and her North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam Sun, agreed during a meeting in Brunei to hold bilateral talks to resolve outstanding bilateral issues, including North Korea's alleged abductions of Japanese nationals.

Sin, now 73, was arrested in South Korea in 1985 on charges of spying for North Korea and was released in December 1999 under President Kim Dae Jung's amnesty program. He was sent back to North Korea in September 2000.

According to Japanese police, Sin acted in conspiracy with another North Korean man and invited Hara to the Aoshima shore in Miyazaki Prefecture where he allegedly kidnapped him to North Korea on board a North Korean spy ship.

Japanese police believe Sin later assumed Hara's identity and obtained a Japanese passport and a Japanese driver's license under Hara's name.

Sin lived in Shizuoka prior to World War II and returned to North Korea after the war. Police said he later smuggled back to Japan and engaged in espionage activities for North Korea.