‘North Korea is a cult’: Former spy was ‘plucked’ from her schoolyard to be a killer for Kim

A former North Korean spy has recalled her role in blowing up a civilian South Korean jet in 1987 – killing all 115 passengers – after being “plucked” from her schoolyard to work for the regime.

Kim Hyun-hee, who was later captured and tried to kill herself by swallowing cyanide, has come out of hiding to shed light on the regime’s warmongering and the desperate attempts by its “inexperienced” leader, Kim Jong-un, to shore up control over the military.

The 51-year-old was given a death sentence after the 1987 attack, in which she and an accomplice managed to plant a bomb on a plane travelling from Baghdad to Seoul via Abu Dhabi.

Despite the death of all 115 passengers on board, she was later pardoned after the South Korean government decided that she had been brainwashed. In an interview from an undisclosed location in South Korea where she lives in fear for her life with her husband and two children, she provided a rare insight into the inner workings of the secretive state and its young leader.

“He’s struggling to gain complete control over the military and to win their loyalty,” she told Australia’s ABC Television. “That’s why he’s doing so many visits to military bases, to firm up support. He’s also using the nuclear program as a bargaining chip for aid, to keep the public behind him.” She added: “North Korea is a not a state, it’s a cult.

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