North Korean female agent linked to abduction of 2 kids ordered terror attack, police say

Japanese police have learned from testimonies that a woman believed to be the leader of North Korean agents involved in a 1974 abduction case in Japan allegedly ordered another agent to carry out a terrorist attack in South Korea in the 1970s, investigative sources said Saturday.

In the alleged abduction case of two children born to a Japanese mother and Korean father who went missing in 1973, the police have found a high possibility that a husband of the 59-year-old female agent knew of the kidnapping plan, the sources said.

The sources said the police obtained the testimonies from people related to Universe Trading — a now-defunct trading company in Tokyo's Shinagawa believed to have served as a base for covert North Korean operations in Japan. The woman also worked there.

Police believe the terrorism order was based on an instruction from North Korea, and came shortly after the failed assassination attempt in August 1974 of then South Korean President Park Chung Hee.

According to the testimonies, the female agent ordered a male agent who worked under her to "do something like that" after the failed assassination incident, the sources said.

The male agent left Japan in 1978 after disappearing from the company because of what was then explained as his increasing distrust of the female agent.

In the assassination attempt on Aug 15, 1974, Mun Se Gwang, a South Korean resident of Japan, shot at the president and his wife at a ceremony marking the 29th anniversary of the liberation of Korea from Japanese occupation. Park survived, but his wife and a female high school student died. Mun was sentenced to death and executed later that year.

The male agent is believed to have been involved in the suspected killing of Hideko Watanabe, the Japanese mother of the two children who went missing together in 1973.

The man had allegedly told acquaintances about circumstances before and after the killing, the sources said.

The sources said the husband, who married the female agent after the abduction incident occurred in 1974, had told workers of Universe Trading and other people about the kidnapping.

The man told them of such abduction circumstances as the children being given sleeping pills but waking up in the middle of being taken to North Korea on a spy ship, and the children having bad motion sickness, the sources said.

Given such testimonies from related people, police suspect the man was either directly involved in the abduction or received detailed reports.

The female agent and the man were allegedly in an intimate relationship before their marriage, the sources said. They left Japan in 1979 and there are no confirmed records of their return, leading the police to believe that they are now living in North Korea, the sources said.

The female agent is suspected of ordering her group of agents to abduct the two children in 1974 after receiving instructions in North Korea where she went after leaving Japan with the passport of another person, the sources said.

On Thursday, police designated two children as having been abducted by North Korean agents, and set up an investigation headquarters to start a full-fledged probe into the case.

The two children are Ko Gyong Mi, then a 6-year-old girl whose Japanese name is Kiyomi, and Ko Gang, then a 3-year-old boy whose Japanese name is Tsuyoshi.

They were born to Ko Dae Gi, a pro-Pyongyang Korean resident in Japan, and his Japanese wife Watanabe, who was 32 when she went missing.

Watanabe is suspected of having been murdered before the children were taken to North Korea.

Ko Dae Gi, who had gone missing earlier, worked for Universe Trading, and is believed to have led the group there before the female agent took over the leading role.