A grim tale of murder at sea has prompted a debate in South Korea. From the Chosun Ilbo:
Two North Koreans who drifted into South Korean waters after apparently killing 16 fellow crew members on a fishing boat were deported to North Korea on Thursday.
Their deportation only became public when a text message to Cheong Wa Dae official Kim Yu-geun was accidentally caught on camera while he was checking it. The text message, from the commander of an Army battalion in the Joint Security Area reads, "We're going to repatriate North Koreans who reached Samcheok, [Gangwon Province] on Nov. 2."
The entire grisly saga had been kept under wraps....
Authorities here questioned the two men after catching them in South Korean waters as they fled across the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea on Nov. 2, ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said.
Investigators found out that the two, who are in their 20s, "had taken flight after killing their fellow crew members on a squid fishing boat in the East Sea," he added.
The 17-ton squid fishing boat left the North's Kimchaek port on Aug. 15 with a crew of 19. Three of them bore a grudge against the captain, who had mistreated them. They hatched a conspiracy to kill him while most of the other crew were sleeping in the cabin one night at the end of October.
The young men told investigators they decided to kill the other 15 crew members as well because they feared they would be punished for the murder if any witnesses were left alive. They called out the others by twos every 40 minutes on the pretext of changing shifts and methodically slaughtered them with a blunt weapon and threw the bodies into the water....
After the killings, the three young men returned to Kimchaek port, where one of them was arrested while the other two managed to flee on the boat. The two told investigators here that they wanted to defect South Korea, but on Nov. 5, the South Korean government sent a message to the North that they would be deported.
This is an unprecedented decision since North Koreans are in theory considered South Korean citizens under the Constitution and have the right to remain here if they want to defect.
The South Korean authorities decided the two men were criminals rather than defectors, and handed them back to North Korea.
The unification ministry in Seoul told the BBC that "when we couldn't trust their intention of defection" they decided not to allow the "serious criminals" to stay.
The two men in their 20s were handed over to the North at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone, he said.
It is the South's first deportation of North Koreans through Panmunjom. There is no extradition agreement between North and South.
Unsurprisingly, there have been complaints:
The bizarre incident tests South Korea’s domestic and international legal commitments. The country’s constitution in theory recognizes North Koreans as South Korean nationals, and Seoul usually accepts fleeing North Koreans, pending an investigation into their background. But South Korean law also allows authorities wide latitude to reject incoming North Korean individuals, for instance, on national security grounds.
Despite the criminal allegations against the North Korean fishermen, some defector and human rights groups in Seoul say the men deserved the legal protections offered by South Korea, noting it is highly likely they will now be executed without a fair trial.
“The two defectors should be handled under the South Korean legal system. We can expect what punishment they will receive in North Korea,” said a statement from Saejowi, a Seoul-based defector support group.
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) also said it was “deeply concerned” about “the first deportation of North Koreans by South Korea since the 1953 Korean War Armistice.”
“This is the first time (South Korea) has sent North Koreans back against their will,” said HRNK. “In doing so, South Korea has undermined its national constitution, which recognizes all North Koreans as citizens of South Korea, granting them the right to live in the South and be protected by its legal system.”
“As we know from decades of research into how North Korea treats its citizens, there is no doubt that the two deportees have been returned to a place where they face no due process, harsh punishment, torture, and almost-certain execution,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of HRNK.
The two Koreas do not have an extradition agreement. While South Korea’s government technically claims judicial authority over the North, South Korean officials say that does not apply to this case.
Officials point to Article 9 of South Korea’s North Korean Refugees Protection and Settlement Support Act, which says authorities are not required to extend protection to those who commit “serious crimes such as murder.” [...]
[W]hile it may be difficult to sympathize with those accused of multiple homicides, the decision sets a bad precedent, said Seoul-based human rights lawyer Kim Se-jin, who said South Korea did not live up to its international obligations.
Specifically, Kim points out that South Korea is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, which prohibits the return or extradition of a person to another state “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
“We respect the South Korean investigation, but the Convention Against Torture says if the criminal or suspect is expected to be tortured or threatened, then the government should not repatriate,” Kim said. “Even though the facts that constitute the crime are obvious, South Korea should have subjected them to judicial proceedings in South Korea.”
“It is de facto truth that the two criminals have a high chance of extrajudicial executions,” she said.
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