Covert group that carried out brazen raid on North Korean embassy now fears exposure
In this March 13 photo, a member of North Korea's Embassy staff tells reporters not to take pictures of the diplomatic building in Madrid. By Adam Taylor and Adam Taylor Foreign reporter who writes about a variety of subjects Email Bio Follow Min Joo Kim Min Joo Kim Assistant Reporter in Seoul covering South and North Korea.
More details emerged this week as a Spanish judge lifted a secrecy order on the embassy raid case and claimed one of the perpetrators had later shared stolen material from the raid with the FBI. In a statement released soon afterward, Free Joseon said this was true and that the information was shared “on their request, not our own.”
Some said the statements by Free Joseon fit in with the man they knew. “For years, Hong has sought to establish a government in exile for North Korea,” said Kim Jung-bong, a South Korean academic who worked at Seoul’s National Intelligence Service until 2007. Free Joseon first gained widespread attention two years after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam at an airport in Kuala Lumpur.
As a young activist in Washington, Hong’s sometimes brash style had earned him both friends and foes, with some admiring his passion and the personal risks he took to help North Koreans in the past — including being arrested in China in 2006 along with two fellow activists and six North Korean refugees.
Later, Hong formed Pegasus Strategies, an advisory firm, and was listed as president of a North Korea-focused group called the Joseon Institute. He appears to have broadened his interests to include the Middle East, traveling to Libya in 2011.
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