North Korean Man Hanged For Spying

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 11

North Korean Man Hanged For Spying

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SEOUL, July 3.

Lee Soo-Keun, aged 45, former vice-president of the official North Korean Central News Agency (K.CJNA.), was hanged in a prison in Seoul today for spying for North Korea, prosecution authorities announced.

Lee, who made a dramatic “escape” from communism through the truce village of Panmunjom on March 22, 1967, was sentenced to death on May 10 by the Seoul District Criminal Court.

Lee did not appeal against the verdict. He had been on trial after he was arrested at Saigon airport on January 31 while attempting to return to North Korea by way of Cambodia. The Seoul District Prosecutor (Mr Kim Byong-Hah) witnessed Lee’s execution this morning, it was announced.

Lee slipped out of South Korea on a forged passport, wearing a wig and false moustache on January 28. The next day, he was intercepted by South Korean secret servicemen at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong, shortly before boarding a Phnon Penh-bound airliner.

After a scuffle between Lee and the secret agents, Lee was taken to the Hong Kong police, who later released him. Lee then boarded a Cam-bodia-bound plane and was dragged from the airliner by Vietnamese and South Korean intelligence officials when the plane was stopped at Saigon.

Lee later admitted at the Court that he was sent to South Korea on an espionage mission and had once sent a coded message to the North Korean Embassy in Moscow through Hong Kong.

He also admitted to trying to escape to Pyongyang via Cambodia when he was arrested in Saigon. He said strong public vigilance against communism in South Korea hampered his spying activities.

After his feigned defection in 1967, he was treated like a national hero. He married a United States-educated college lecturer in Seoul last year. He had left his wife and three children in North Korea.