The son of an aide to North Koreanleader Kim Jong-un’s uncle is in hiding in Franceafter evading abduction by agents of the Communist regime, foreign diplomatic sources believe, reports The Telegraph.
“There was an attempt to force him to go back, but it is thought he escaped and is somewhere in France. There is an attempt to locate him but he hasn’t been found yet,” said the diplomatic source.
The architecture student, referred to only by his surname Han, went missing last month, raising concerns for his safety. He is believed to be the son of a close confidant of Jang Song-thaek, Kim Jong-un’s once powerful uncle who was executed in December last year on treason charges. Han's father is known to have been killed recently as part of a Kim regime purge of Jang allies.
Park Sung-jin, Paris correspondent for Yonhap, South Korea’s biggest news agency which broke the story, said: “Since the 1980s, when the regime changes and someone is executed and his relatives and friends and family are studying abroad, they are brought home.
“If Han returned he would likely be kept in a political prison or executed. That has happened many times. He knew what was awaiting him, so he escaped.”
Han’s curious disappearance, which comes amid heightened tensions between North Korea and America over the Sony Entertainment Pictures hacking scandal, has lifted the lid on the murky ties France keeps with the Communist regime.
Despite having no official diplomatic relations with the dictatorship, France has been behind a discreet student programme in place since 2002 in which North Korean students from privileged backgrounds study architecture in Paris. The stated aim is for them to return to Pyongyang and launch grandiose architectural projects to the glory of the dictatorship.