The judge of the National Court, Francisco de Jorge, has agreed this Friday to unconditional imprisonment for the citizen Chang Su Lim, wanted for the assault on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid on February 22, 2019, in which a group of men stole several computers and hard drives from the office. He was recently arrested in Hungary and handed over by the authorities of that country.
In his order, collected by Europa Press, the magistrate attributes to him the crimes of breaking and entering, multiple crimes of illegal detention, threats and robbery with violence and intimidation in an inhabited house, committed by a criminal organization that can carry very serious penalties exceeding the ten years in prison.
De Jorge, who gives an account of the events that occurred in the assault on the Embassy, ??explains that the investigation has unequivocally proven the direct and active participation of the detainee in the events in which he participated together with other Korean citizens.
The resolution includes information provided by the United States FBI which confirms the participation in the aforementioned assault of the detainee and four other individuals related to the Cheollima Civil Defense organization. This person is also linked to the purchase, in the days before the assault, in a hardware store in Madrid, of some of the instruments used in the criminal action. The investigation, explains the judge, proves that several of those claimed, including Chang-Su-Lim, fled Europe through Portugal.
The judge who opts for unconditional imprisonment following the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court, argues that the admission to prison is motivated by the seriousness of the crimes with which he is accused and by the risk of escape, taking into account that he has been four years on the run and out of the reach of Spanish justice.
It was on February 22, 2019, when a group of citizens of various nationalities and descendants of North Koreans entered the North Korean Embassy in Madrid with the intention of stealing documents and information from the Asian country.
“They entered the headquarters (…) by force, using firearms, machetes and knives. They kidnapped all the staff, beating them and causing injuries to some, including the charge d’affaires,” the judge recalls in the order. of this Friday, which also indicates that during the assault they placed shackles and zip ties to immobilize the personnel.
According to the investigation led by the then judge of the National Court José de la Mata, the leader of the gang would be Adrian Hong Chang, a Mexican citizen residing in the United States, who met at the Embassy weeks before the assault with the ‘number one of the North Korean diplomatic representation in Spain, the charge d’affaires of the delegation Yun Sok So.
According to statements by Yun Sok So, during the meeting Adrian Hong Chang used a false name and talked about business issues, without raising suspicions. On February 22, the assailants showed up at the premises, where the charge d’affaires also lives with his wife and son, and tied up several of the workers.
The North Korean diplomat stated that he received several blows and was locked in the basement of the building, where the assailants allegedly asked him to defect from North Korea, something he claims he refused to do.
Finally, the assailants, some of whom have not yet been identified, stole several computers and hard drives and fled from the Embassy to Portugal, and from there they flew to the United States. After his arrest, the US authorities delivered the stolen material to the North Korean Embassy in Spain.
The investigation suggests that this theft of information could have something to do with the meeting that was scheduled just five days later between the then US president, Donald Trump, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Un, in Vietnam.
North Korea has accused US intelligence services of masterminding the assault, with the aim of obtaining as much information as possible about its country before the meeting.
The suspects in the assault are members of the dissident group calling itself Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD), also known as Free Joseon, which seeks to end the leadership of the current North Korean president.
