A secretive dissident group committed to overthrowing the North Korean regime has claimed responsibility for an attack on its embassy in Madrid.
The group broke its silence late on Tuesday after being outed by a Spanish judge, who reported that the mastermind behind the February plot was a Mexican citizen who flew straight to the US to offer sensitive information to the FBI.
Adrian Hong Chang is said to be a long-time activist who was spurred to action against the repressive regime after reading the memoir of a North Korean prisoner. Fellow activists said he had been briefly detained in China in the past for his work supporting North Korean defectors.
The 14-page summary issued by Spanish high court judge Jose de la Mata alleges that Chang, along with US citizen Sam Ryu and five South Koreans, were members of a gang of 10 who tied up and interrogated six diplomats before making off with confidential files.
The Cheollima Civil Defence group – whose name refers to a mythical winged horse often used in North Korean propaganda – hit back after the report was published, accusing the US authorities of a deep betrayal that had endangered their lives.
Ng Han Guan/AP
According to fresh details included in the court summary, the bizarre tale began on the afternoon of Feb. 22, when Mr Hong Chang, approached the embassy using a false identity and asked to speak to Yun Sok So, an economics adviser.
He then reportedly opened the door to let in his nine accomplices who were armed with knives, machetes, metal bars and fake pellet guns acquired in Madrid in the days before.
During the raid, the court said diplomats had their hands tied behind their backs and the economics officer sustained “several injuries” while his assailants tried to persuade him to defect.
A female diplomat raised the alarm after jumping from the building’s first floor. A passerby heard her screams and alerted the police, who then surrounded the embassy.
By this time, the group had been inside the building for close to five hours, plundering confidential information including a set of flash drives, two computers, two hard drives with security images and a mobile phone.
Mr Hong Chang opened the door to the Spanish police and managed to deceive them by posing as a diplomat. The group then drove to freedom in embassy vehicles, removing their electronic tags, and escaping to New York via Portugal.
Days later Mr Hong Chang offered the information to the FBI, the report says.
Mr De la Mata has issued international arrest warrants for Mr Hong Chang and Mr Ryu.
Saul Loeb/AFP
In response, the CCD put out its own version of events. They denied accusations that the incident was an “attack” and said their only motivation was to “fight the regime’s practices” on behalf of “millions of our enslaved people.” They remained evasive about the exact reasons for entering the embassy in order “to protect those who seek our help” but claimed that they were “invited” into the building in response to an urgent situation. They apologised to the Spanish authorities “for any inconvenience caused.”
No one was gagged or beaten, no weapons were used, and no other governments were involved or had any knowledge of the group’s activities until after the event, the statement stressed.
However, the organisation claimed it had “shared certain information of enormous potential value with the FBI in the United States, under mutually agreed terms of confidentiality. This information was shared voluntarily and on their request, not our own. Those terms appear to have been broken.”
“Parties seeking to ‘out’ those in Madrid have painted a target on the backs of those seeking only to protect others; they have chosen to side with Pyongyang’s criminal, totalitarian rulers over their victims,” it said.
The group added cryptically that “it may take some more months of political theatre to realise Pyongyang is once again acting with treachery,” also accusing the regime of using its embassies for illicit drugs and arms trafficking, and as launchpads for cyber attacks, assassinations and kidnappings.
Jung Yeon-je/AFP
Little is known about the group or the veracity of its earlier claims. It first came to light in 2017 when it posted a video of Kim Jong-un’s nephew online, saying it had guaranteed his safety shortly after his father, Kim Jong-nam, was brazenly murdered with a nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur airport.
Last month the group declared itself as a government-in-exile for the North called "Free Joseon", a reference to Korea’s last dynastic rulers.
If CCD was behind the embassy break-in, it indicates the involvement of North Korean defectors who have experience working for its military or security authorities, according to Nam Sung Wook, a former president of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s main spy agency.
Activists said Mr Hong Chang is likely to be the same man who in 2005 co-founded Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an international activist group devoted to rescuing North Korean refugees.
Kang Chol-hwan, an ex-inmate of North Korea’s notorious Yodok prison camp who helped with LiNK, said Mr Hong Chang had became passionate about North Korean human rights after reading his detention memoir.
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