TOKYO: Tokyo police said Tuesday that they have officially confirmed the death of a suspect in the abduction of a Japanese national by North Korea decades ago.

The suspect, Kim Kil Uk, was on the international wanted list for the June 1980 abduction of Tadaaki Hara, who was 43 years old at the time.

After confirming Kim’s death, the Public Security Bureau of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department returned Kim’s arrest warrant to a court and lifted his international wanted status.

It is the first confirmed death among the 11 abduction suspects on the international wanted list.

Tokyo police were informed by South Korean authorities last year that Kim, who held South Korean citizenship, had died several years ago, and later received documents confirming that he died in South Korea on March 13, 2018, at the age of 90.

Kim, along with then North Korean agent Shin Kwang Soo, 94, was suspected of luring Hara, then a worker at a Chinese restaurant in the western Japan city of Osaka, to the Aoshima coast in Miyazaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, and taking him to North Korea on a covert operation ship.

Shin is believed to have later impersonated Hara, obtained his passport, and conducted espionage activities in Japan and other countries.

In April 2006, Japanese police obtained arrest warrants for Kim and Shin on suspicion of kidnapping and placed them on the international wanted list.

JIJI Press