Seoul Central District prosecutors obtained a prison grievance towards Kim Yo Jong. (File)
Seoul:
Seoul prosecutors have opened an unprecedented probe into North Korean chief Kim Jong Un’s sister over Pyongyang’s blowing up of a liaison workplace final month, officers mentioned Thursday.
The transfer is prone to infuriate the nuclear-armed North, which has repeatedly condemned South Korea in current months, together with directing private insults at President Moon Jae-in.
Seoul Central District prosecutors obtained a prison grievance towards Kim Yo Jong from a Seoul-based lawyer and had began an investigation, a spokeswoman informed AFP.
Final month, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison workplace on its facet of the border, days after Kim Yo Jong — certainly one of her brother’s closest advisers — had mentioned the “ineffective” property would quickly be seen “fully collapsed”.
Earlier than the demolition, it had issued a collection of vitriolic condemnations of South Korea over anti-North leaflets that defectors ship again throughout the heavily-militarised border — normally hooked up to balloons or floated in bottles.
It raised stress additional by threatening army measures towards Seoul, however later mentioned it had suspended these plans in an obvious sudden dialling-down of tensions.
In his grievance, lawyer Lee Kyung-jae claimed the now-demolished liaison workplace was South Korean property because it was renovated utilizing South Korean authorities funds, regardless of its being situated within the North.
Kim “used explosives to destroy” the South’s “quasi-diplomatic mission constructing that served the general public curiosity”, he mentioned within the grievance.
Lee additionally filed a grievance towards Pak Jong Chon, chief of the final workers of the North Korean army.
Underneath South Korea’s prison code, he burdened, damaging property or disturbing the peace utilizing explosives was punishable by demise, or a jail sentence of no less than seven years.
Capital punishment stays on the statute books in South Korea, though it has not executed anybody since 1997.
In apply, it could be nearly unimaginable for Seoul officers to punish Kim Yo Jong or Pak, however Lee informed the South’s Yonhap Information Company that he wished to “inform the North Korean individuals of their chief’s hypocrisy”.
The announcement got here per week after a Seoul court docket ordered Pyongyang’s chief to compensate prisoners of warfare who spent a long time in North Korea, in a transfer that might set a far-reaching authorized precedent on the divided peninsula.
Inter-Korean relations have been strained following the collapse of a summit in Hanoi between Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump early final 12 months over what the nuclear-armed North can be keen to surrender in alternate for a loosening of sanctions.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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