Police Suspect Ex-DLP Leader of Being a N. Korean Intel Asset

More linkage between South Korea’s radical left and North Korean intelligence. Police raided the homes and offices of three activists, seized electronic files and photos, and obtained arrest warrants. One of those arrested is Lee Jung-Hoon, 42, a former leader of the far-left Democratic Labor Party. That’s not all he was the leader of, apparently:

Lee was a leader of Sammint’u, or the Struggle Committee for Liberation of the Masses, Attainment of Democracy and Unification of the Nation, and was sentenced to prison for leading the three-day seizure of the U.S. Information Service building in Seoul in May 1985. He is charged with meeting a North Korean agent in China in March to receive instructions this year.

The NIS suspects one of the three, identified as Jang, visited the North without government permission several years ago and is investigating what he was doing there. The agency believes more ex-student activists are involved in the case. “We are still investigating them and this could evolve into a large-scale espionage case,” an NIS official said.

Call for your smelling salts. Incidentally, this is the first time I’ve seen evidence of connections between the DLP and North Korea, although some of their ideology had given me unfounded suspicions. Recently, however, one of their leaders even suggested that the DLP ought to make an issue of human rights there. Of course, none of the parties have done that….