N. Korea poison-needle attacks suspected

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BEIJING, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- North Korea's regime has used suspected poison-needle attacks, one fatal, to try to target South Korean activists critical of Kim Jong Il, observers say.

The Los Angeles Times reports in the first and only fatal attack, Patrick Kim, 46, a South Korean pastor, collapsed near a taxi stand in Dandong, a Chinese city on the Yalu River overlooking North Korea, on Aug. 21. He was dead when he reached a hospital.

His family and diplomats believe the human rights activist, who helped people get out of North Korea and into China, was killed by North Korean agents, likely with a poison needle.

"We are assuming there was a murder perpetrated. Although the evidence is circumstantial, it points strongly to North Korea," said Lee Dong-bak, a retired official of the South Korean intelligence service and now an academic in Seoul. "The poison needle has been in use by North Korean special operations for a long time."

Another suspected North Korean poison-needle attack occurred Aug. 22 in Yanji, China, where a South Korean involved in missionary work felt a pinprick in his lower back, then collapsed. He survived the attack.

And in mid-September, South Korean intelligence announced the arrest of a North Korean defector, accused of planning a poison-needle attack on Park Sung-hak, a human rights activist who has launched balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets into North Korea, the Times said.

The newspaper noted the suspected poison-needle attacks come as North Korea's state-run media have threatened retaliation against activists trying to bring down Kim's regime. Many of the activists are evangelical Christians who smuggle out defectors and send anti-regime literature and Bibles across the border, sometimes using balloons.