Report Claims North Korea Runs Secret Detention Facility in Beijing Embassy

SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Yonhap) -- North Korea allegedly runs a secret detention facility in its embassy in China to interrogate and repatriate its nationals deemed threats to the regime, a report said Tuesday.

The claim was made in a report titled "North Korea's Transnational Repression: China" released Tuesday by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based human rights group.

Based on interviews with multiple sources, including a former North Korean diplomat, the report claimed North Korea operates the facility in the basement of its embassy in Beijing, where surveillance, pursuit and arrest, detention and interrogation, and forced repatriation take place.

The secret operation is overseen by a "security representative" who holds a consular post but is reportedly a North Korean intelligence agency officer on a temporary assignment. Cases are reported to Pyongyang within 12-24 hours, according to the report.

The report details the account of North Korean hacker Pae Yong-ju, who was arrested by Chinese authorities in Inner Mongolia while trying to flee to South Korea.

After being interrogated by Chinese authorities for about six months, he was handed over to the North Korean consulate general in Shenyang, which took custody of him and transferred him to the facility.

He was allegedly sent back to North Korea on an Air Koryo flight, disguised as a patient while physically incapacitated in a wheelchair and a full-body cast.

"Three years after his repatriation, an informant confirmed his death," the report said.

"North Korea's transnational repression is not only a serious international crime and human rights violation but also detrimental to China's judicial sovereignty and due process," it said.

Noting varying degrees of alleged cooperation from Chinese authorities, the report called on the international community to monitor China's handling of North Korea's human rights abuses.