Hello and welcome to the details of After decades in jail, six elderly ex-spies ask to defect to North Korea and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - This picture taken on August 13, 2025 shows Ahn Hak-sop, a former prisoner of conscience convicted of spying for North Korea, arriving to attend a press conference in Seoul. — AFP pic
SEOUL, Aug 19 — Six elderly men who served lengthy jail terms for spying against South Korea have asked to be sent to the North, a Seoul unification official told AFP today, decades after their release.
The six men — now aged between 80 and 96 — served decades in prison while refusing to renounce their communist beliefs.
North and South Korea remain technically at war as the 1950–1953 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
One former prisoner, Ahn Hak-sop, 95, was arrested during the Korean War and jailed for more than 40 years before being released.
A civic group representing the six men said it had asked the government to allow them to be sent to the North tomorrow, arguing they should be treated as “prisoners of war” whose request should be respected under the Geneva Convention.
“We have received an official request for repatriation,” an official at the Unification Ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs told AFP without elaborating.
“We are looking at various ways to address this,” they added.
The official said more former convicts in similar positions were expected to demand repatriation, adding the government had no precise figure for how many of them remain alive.
The request comes after South Korea’s new President Lee Jae Myung, elected in a June snap poll, vowed to improve ties with the nuclear-armed North and resume dialogue.
Lee’s administration has made a series of Pyongyang-friendly gestures, including removing propaganda loudspeakers along the border, which have long irritated the North.
Lee pledged Friday to “respect” North Korea’s political system and build “military trust”.
A day earlier, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, said the North has “no will to improve relations” with the South.
In 2000, South Korea repatriated 63 “unconverted” former prisoners through the border truce village of Panmunjom during a period of rapprochement — the first and only such event to date. — AFP
These were the details of the news After decades in jail, six elderly ex-spies ask to defect to North Korea for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
