YONHAP NEWS

(LEAD) 22 N. Korean drifters executed after return home: source

   SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, a source here said Sunday.

   Two fishing boats carrying the North Koreans -- 14 women and eight men including three teenagers -- drifted into the western waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Feb. 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention of defecting, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release on Saturday.

   The North Koreans were residents of Kangnyeong County, North Korea's southern coastal province of South Hwanghae, who went to sea to collect clams and oysters without authorization from the North Korean maritime agency, the intelligence service said.

   The report of their return by South Korean authorities came after the mass circulation Chosun Ilbo broke the report in its weekend edition.

   A source well-versed in North Korea told Yonhap News Agency, however, that the drifters were all executed immediately after returning home early last week. The provincial branch of North Korea's National Security Agency shot and killed them secretly, the source said.

   Of the group, 13 were extended family members and nine others were their neighbors, according to the South Korean intelligence agency.

   "A rumor spread in South Hwanghae Province that (the security agency) secretly executed the 22 people immediately after they were returned," the source said.

   "People in the province are shocked by the fact that all of the 22 people were shot and killed without exception, such being sent to a prison camp," the source said.

   South Korean intelligence officials, contacted by Yonhap News Agency, said they were not aware of the rumored execution and would try to verify it.

   South Korean intelligence acknowledged there is a possibility that the returnees were executed because of their unauthorized fishing.

   "I'm not aware of whether they were executed or not, but that's possible because they went fishing with no authorization from the North Korean maritime authorities," a government official said, requesting anonymity.

   Given the large number of North Koreans spotted aboard, suspicions had been raised that they were seeking asylum but were returned. The fact that the majority of the drifters were women -- 14 out of 22 -- and that three students aged between 15 and 17 were aboard contributed to the suspicion of their defection attempt.

   They were sent back home through a overland route after being brought to the port city of Incheon for interrogation.

   The intelligence authorities denied the speculation.

   The drifters "could have been sent back at the site where they were rescued, because they said they were drifting and they had no intention of defecting, but there was a large number of them, including women, so their boats were taken to Incheon for interrogation," another government official said.

   Joint interrogation by the police and the National Intelligence Agency found that they were neither asylum seekers nor spies, he said.

   Another official, requesting anonymity, said, "It was beyond imagination to repatriate a North Korean defector at a time when the new government comes in with its North Korea policy set on the human rights condition in the country."
South Korea is set to revise its decade-long sunshine policy toward North Korea as the incoming conservative government of Lee Myung-bak plans to take a tougher stance on North Korea with calls to improve its human rights condition and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

   Four North Koreans claimed asylum after their wooden vessel drifted onto Yeonpyeong Island in May last year, following the defection of five North Koreans drifting on a small vessel in 2006.

   hkim@yna.co.kr
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