SEOUL, May 19 (UPI) -- A high-profile North Korean scientist has fled the communist country and is now seeking asylum in South Korea, a Seoul-based human rights group said Friday.
The 43-year-old scientist, head of a provincial committee of the North's state-run General Federation of Science and Technology, crossed the border to China in March, said Do Hui-yoon, secretary-general of the Citizen's Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.
A North Korean female medical doctor who headed a military hospital has also escaped from the North, Do told a press conference.
"The two have been moved to a Southeast Asian country with the help of a U.N. organization and are seeking political asylum in South Korea," Do said. The human rights activists refused to identify the defectors and the Southeast Asian country for their safety.
If the defector comes to the South, he would be the highest-ranking scientist from the reclusive North ever to defect to the country and is expected to provide vital information about the North's nuclear weapons program, Do said.
"The scientist is very confident that the North already possesses a number of nuclear weapons," he said.
