- Former North Korean spy says Kim Jung Un ‘using games as weapon’
- Kim Hyon-hui was brainwashed and sent to plant bomb on South Korean airliner
- Mother-of-two says North Korea ‘won’t give up its nuclear weapons’
The former North Korean spy says that Kim Jung Un’s ‘charm offensive’ at the Winter Olympics is a weapon to drive a wedge between the US and South Korea
A former North Korean spy who blew up a plane killing 115 people has warned that tyrant Kim Jong Un’s charm offensive at the Winter Olympics is a cynical bid to divide his enemies.
Kim Hyon-hui says North Korea is using the Games as a ‘weapon’ to drive a wedge between South Korea and the US, and will never give up its nuclear programme.
Kim was brainwashed as a 19-year-old university student and sent on a mission to plant a bomb on a South Korean airliner in an attempt to derail the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
She was captured and sentenced to death for the outrage before being pardoned by South Korea, where she now lives in hiding, fearing assassination by North Korean agents. Speaking from a secret location, the softly spoken mother-of-two said: ‘North Korea is using the Olympics as a weapon. It is trying to escape sanctions by holding hands with South Korea.’
She described the joint Olympics team as ‘a publicity stunt’ for the dictator and said: ‘North Korea won’t give up its nuclear weapons. They are its lifeline.’
Pyongyang’s goal was to drive US troops out of South Korea, she said, predicting it will resume missile launches once the Games are over. Kim, now 56, was studying languages in the North Korean capital when she was hand-picked to be a spy and given seven years of training.
Members of the North Korean cheer leading team hold miniature Korean Unification Flags at the figure skating programme at the Winter Olympics last week
In 1987, she was sent with a male agent to plant a bomb hidden in a radio in the overhead compartment of a Korean Air flight from Baghdad to Seoul. The bombers got off the plane in Abu Dhabi and the plane then exploded over the Andaman Sea, killing all 104 passengers and 11 crew.
Kim and her colleague both swallowed cyanide pills when they were arrested in Bahrain as they tried to escape back to Pyongyang. The male agent died but Kim survived.