North Korea runs secret Beijing site to interrogate defectors, says rights group report

North Korea allegedly tracks down defectors in China and interrogates them at a suspected secret detention facility in Beijing, a new report found.

In August 2023, a man in a wheelchair, his entire body encased in casts, was reportedly among the passengers on a flight from Beijing to Pyongyang. He was Pae Yong-ju, a North Korean hacker who operated in China and had attempted to defect to South Korea. North Korean authorities disguised Pae as a patient to conceal his repatriation and prevent him from resisting, according to the human rights group Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) on Monday.

Pae graduated from Madonghui Military College, which trains agents for operations against South Korea, and was dispatched to China to work as a hacker. He is said to have stolen cryptocurrency and obtained information from South Korean government agencies and Chinese military institutions. He was reportedly arrested by Chinese authorities while attempting to defect to South Korea.

The rights group says that North Korean authorities then took custody of Pae and interrogated him for about a year at the North Korean Embassy in China before repatriating him.

Pae is one of the cases mentioned in TJWG's report on North Korea’s transnational repression in China. The report is based on interviews with more than 10 former and current North Korean officials as well as reports from media outlets specializing in North Korea.

The operations are overseen by a so-called “security representative” stationed at the North Korean Embassy in China, the report said. Although officially given a consular title, the security representative is reportedly a senior official dispatched from North Korea's National Intelligence Agency, formerly the Ministry of State Security. The official directs operations to track down, apprehend and repatriate North Koreans who have fled or fallen out of contact while overseas.

When an intelligence officer detects that a North Korean has fled, the security representative is said to report it to Pyongyang within 12 to 24 hours. Once orders are issued, intelligence officers form an “arrest team” and begin tracking the person down. If they have difficulty locating the target through their own intelligence network, they are said to seek cooperation from Chinese police by accusing the person of offenses such as possessing drugs or firearms.

The report also stated that North Koreans who are arrested are primarily interrogated at the North Korean Embassy in China.

TJWG suspects that the basement of the embassy’s consular building in Beijing’s Chaoyang District is being used as a secret detention facility. The report bases the assessment on multiple accounts, including testimony from a former North Korean diplomat that "the basement of the consular building serves as a prison."

The findings of the security representative’s interrogations are also said to affect collective punishment imposed not only on the person detained but also on family members in North Korea.

“North Korea setting up a secret prison in a foreign country, conducting interrogations there and even imposing collective punishment constitutes a serious form of human rights abuse,” said Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst at TJWG.

TJWG classified North Korea’s transnational repression into three types: cases carried out independently by North Korean agents; cases in which China turns a blind eye to the activities of North Korean arrest teams; and cases in which Chinese authorities actively cooperate in tracking, apprehending, investigating and handing over individuals.

“North Korea’s transnational repression constitutes an international crime and also infringes on China’s judicial sovereignty,” said Lee Young-hwan, executive director of TJWG.

BY SHIM SEOK-YONG [[email protected]]