Seoul blocks elderly ex-North Korean spy from going North: Civic group
Ahn Hak-sop (C), a former North Korean soldier, speaks to a police officer as he walks towards a military checkpoint on the Tongil bridge, the road leading to the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom, in the border city of Paju on Aug 20, 2025. (Photo: AFP/Yonhap)
SEOUL: An elderly North Korean ex-spy who spent decades in jail in the South and has pleaded to be sent to the North was prevented on Wednesday (Aug 20) from crossing the border by South Korean soldiers, a spokeswoman told AFP.
Ahn Hak-sop, 95, is one of six elderly former North Korean soldiers and spies who have recently stepped up their demands that Seoul repatriate them to their ideological homeland.
They were convicted in the South for anti-state activities and served decades behind bars for refusing to renounce communism. They have subsequently been released.
Holding a North Korean flag, Ahn "walked a few hundred metres toward a military checkpoint and was stopped by personnel", a spokeswoman for a civic group campaigning for his return told AFP.
Anh was taken to hospital.
A photo carried by the Yonhap news agency showed Ahn holding the red-and-blue North Korean flag at the border - an act that could be punishable under Seoul's national security law.
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war.
Ahn was captured during the Korean War in 1953 while on an infiltration mission and remained imprisoned until 1995, a lengthy term that could have ended earlier had he agreed to embrace democracy.
The civic group representing Ahn and the five others argues they should be recognised as "prisoners of war" and that their repatriation requests must be respected under the Geneva Convention.
"I am a prisoner of war who came here in a North Korean military uniform under orders from the Workers' Party," Ahn said in a 2024 interview with local outlet Ganghwa News.
"But the South Korean government did not treat me as such, and I was forced to spend more than 40 years in prison, subjected to numerous tortures."
The civic group told AFP it would continue to press for the men's return.
North Korea has yet to comment on the case.
Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, told AFP on Tuesday it was reviewing "various ways to address the issue".
The ministry official added that more former convicts in similar situations were expected to demand repatriation, though the government had no precise figure on how many remain alive.
In 2000, South Korea repatriated 63 "unconverted" former prisoners through the border truce village of Panmunjom during a brief period of rapprochement - the first and only such event to date.
