Koreans to die

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 10

Koreans to die

NZPA-Reuter Rangoon Two North Korean Army officers were sentenced to death yesterday after being found guilty of detonating three bombs which killed 21 people, including four South Korean Cabinet Ministers.

A court in Rangoon sentenced Major Zin Mo, aged 30, identified as the leader of a three-man North Korean assassination squad, and Captain Kang Min Chui, aged 28, to die for the bomb attack. The third member of the team, Captain Sin Kli Choi, was killed after the attack, made during a State visit to Burma by the South Korean President, Mr Chun Doo Kwan. Forty-six people were injured. The Court said that evidence had showed that the team had been ordered to kill Mr Chun and his delegation by a North Korean general, Kang Chang Su, when the Sourth Korean party went to pay their respects at Rangoon's Martyrs’ Mausoleum.

The Court said that the three had arrived in Burma by ship from North Korea and stayed in a North Korean diplomat’s house in Rangoon until the attack. They had installed two mines and an incendiary bomb in the ceiling of the mausoleum and Mo had detonated the devices by remote-control as the South Korean delegation entered. The pair were captured in Rangoon a few days after the bombing and the third was killed by the police in a shoot-out which erupted when he refused to be searched.