Unification Minister: NIS Not Behind Defection of N. Korean Restaurant Workers

Anchor: Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon has denied speculation that the National Intelligence Service orchestrated a mass defection of North Korean restaurant workers ahead of the general elections in 2016. Cho has claimed that the group came to South Korea from China of their own free will.
Our Laurence Taylor has more.
Report: Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon has dismissed claims that the National Intelligence Service(NIS) was behind the mass defection of 12 North Korean restaurant workers to the South ahead of the 2016 general elections.
Speaking at a full session of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Thursday, Cho said that the group who worked at a North Korean restaurant in China came to South Korea of their own free will and are leading lives as South Korean citizens.
There have been allegations that the country's spy agency orchestrated the defection for political purposes as it occurred just before the parliamentary elections.
Cho said related agencies are looking into the suspicion, but there is no change in the government’s stance on the issue.
On Tuesday, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office launched a probe into the allegations a day after the liberal Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed a complaint against former NIS Director Lee Byung-ho and former Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo.
The lawyers' group accused the top officials who had served under the previous Park Geun-hye administration and other officials who had worked at the spy agency at that time of orchestrating the defection.
Following the news of the defection, there were rumors that it was engineered by Seoul to work in favor of the then-ruling Saenuri Party in the general elections.
Rumors of the spy agency’s alleged involvement in the defection resurfaced last week when a cable TV network aired an interview with the restaurant manager, who said that he had been ordered by the NIS to threaten his employees to defect with him.
Laurence Taylor, KBS World Radio News.
[Photo : YONHAP News]