Senior N. Korean Scientist Defects

[Updated 5/18; scroll down.]

The bad news is that he’s headed for South Korea, which will try to keep a tight lid on him:

According to the official at the South Korean human rights group, the North Korean defector headed a provincial committee of the General Federation of Science and Technology of Korea while in the communist state.

If he comes to the South, the defector would be the highest ranking scientist from the reclusive North ever to defect to the country who can provide vital information about the North’s nuclear weapons program, the official said.

“The scientist is very confident that the North already possesses a number of nuclear weapons,” Do said.

The alleged defector did not work on the North’s nuclear program, according to Do, but is believed to have been of sufficient stature to have been privy to such information.

I wonder if this proposal had anything to do with the scientist’s decision, or whether it had more to do with the female doctor who accompanied him.

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Update 5/18:

We learn more details:

The man is a mechanical engineer, Mr. Doh said, and had comprehensive knowledge of North Korean technology, including military technology. Mr. Doh said the man fled North Korea out of anger at Pyongyang’s poor treatment of its scientists. The other defector is a 65-year-old physician, a woman, Mr. Doh said. An ethnic Korean born in China, she moved to North Korea in the 1970s and was licensed as a medical doctor there. She was, before fleeing North Korea in January, practicing at a military hospital where she treated senior military officials and had risen to become the hospital’s administrator before escaping with the help of her relatives in China.

OK, I’m prepared to rule out the theory that these two are having an affair. I hope they talk.