Plan to Confront Song Du-yul and Oh Kim-nam

The 1st Department of Public Peace at the Seoul Prosecution Office, investigating the case of a breach of National Security Law by Song Du-yul (59), a scholar residing in Germany, summoned Oh Kim-nam (61), insisting that Oh had been persuaded to go to North Korea by Song during his days in school in Germany, to be a reference and conducted an investigation on October 7.

The prosecution investigated the conversation in which Song told Oh, “If I were you, I would come back to North Korea. North Korea is the only place we can depend on.” Other conversations mentioned Song trying to draw other students to North Korea.

A plan to hold a confrontational questioning between Song, who was summoned three times, and Oh is under consideration by the prosecution on October 8.

Another plan to summon and investigate Hwang Jang-yeop, a former secretary of the Labor Party who defected to South Korea in 1997, is under consideration.

In July 1998 Hwang insisted, “Song is the candidate member in the political department of the Labor Party with an assumed name of Kim Chul-soo.” Song rebutted, “I was defamed by his false statement.”

It is said that prosecution will bring in a spy named Park, who defected to the South in late 1990’s, as a witness and will investigate him in the next few days to clearly determine how Song was elected as the candidate member of Labor Party, ‘Kim Chul-soo,’ and what he has done for them.

Park asserted, “Kim Chul-soo is a person related to operations against the South and is an unrevealed candidate member of the political department.”

Sang-Rok Lee Tae-Hoon Lee myzodan@donga.com jefflee@donga.com