Revolutionary, assassin, spy - Kim Hyon Hui has been all of those things. But she'll be
forever infamous as one of the North Korea's most daring and destructive secret agents,
the femme fatale behind the rogue state's most deadly terrorist act.
It was a huge operation and I was trained to get the operation done. As an agent in
North Korea, I was in no position to argue if a mission was right or wrong. I was trained
to carry out the mission even if it cost people's lives.
Kim Hyun Hee's mission was to bomb a South Korean airliner. The attack in 1987 killed
all 115 people on board and led to the United States listing North Korea as a state sponsor
of terrorism.
From the moment I got on the Korean air flight, left the bomb in the overhead locker and until
I got off, I was nervous, every second of the operation.
Kim Hyon Hui sat down in Seoul for an exclusive interview with 7.30.
With tensions on the Peninsula higher than they've been in years, her story offers a
glimpse inside one of the world's most unpredictable and secretive states, a regime founded by
the eternal leader Kim Il-sung.
In North Korea I was taught that our leader Kim Il-sung was a god. You were taught to
put him before your own parents. You learned from early childhood to say "Thank you, great
leader" for everything. And if you said the wrong thing, even if it was a slip of the
tongue, you'd end up in the gulag. North Korea is not a state, it's a cult.
In 1970s North Korea, in the Orwellian uniformity of this cult, Kim Hyon Hui stood out, and
the regime quickly noticed the teenager because of her sharp intelligence and stunning beauty.
That plus her ability to speak perfect Japanese meant Kim Hyon Hui was singled out to become
a spy.
One day a black sedan showed up at my school. They were from the central party and told
me I'd been chosen. I wasn't even allowed time to say goodbye to my friends; I was just
told to pack. I was given one last night with my family.
In 1980, Kim Hyon Hui was sent to North Korea's elite spy training school in the remote mountains.
She was given a new name and intensive training in martial arts, weapons and languages. After
nearly eight years of learning spycraft, Kim was ready for her defining mission, one devised
by the son of the founder and the country's future "Dear Leader".
In North Korea, you needed Kim Jong-il's approval for the most minor thing, let alone a spy
mission. He personally ordered the operation to bomb the Korean air flight.
This was the ultimate target of Kim Hyon Hui's mission, the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
These games are the first in 12 years with no major boycotts and the Eastern Bloc, led
by the Soviet Union, is expected to dominate the medals.
The future "Dear Leader" of North Korea, Kim Jong-il hoped the bombing of Flight 858 would
scare foreign teams into staying away from the Olympics
The Australians were amongst the brightest in the stadium in gold stockman's coats and
wide-brimmed hats.
Flight 858 was scheduled to take off from Baghdad on 28th November, 1987, bound for
Seoul. But it would not reach its destination.
Kim Hyon Hui was teamed up with a legendary North Korean spy Kim Sung-il. Together, they
flew from Pyongyang to Moscow. Then they travelled to Budapest where they were given fake Japanese
passports and began posing a father and daughter touring Europe together. From Budapest, they
flew to Vienna, then to Belgrade.
My partner and I had experience as agents in Europe. We were confident there and knew
how the airports worked.
But they were soon flying out for unfamiliar territory to Baghdad. There, Kim Hyon Hui
set the timer on the bomb, which was hidden inside a transistor radio. It was set to explode
nine hours after flight 858 took off, as the plane was in the air en route to Seoul.
It was such a huge operation. I was so focused on trying to complete it. I was worried if
I could do it.
After stowing the bomb, the two North Koreans left the plane during a stopover in Abu Dhabi
and made their way to Bahrain. Flight 858, meanwhile, had continued on towards Seoul.
But over the Andaman Sea, the timer stopped ticking.
In Seoul, the relatives of the 115 people on board were told the plane had gone down,
with suspicions immediately focusing on a bomb.
Back in Bahrain, 25-year-old agent Kim Hyon Hui was desperately trying to make her escape.
We had nowhere to run. We had to get out of Bahrain, but our next plane didn't leave for
two days. I was so anxious; it was driving me crazy. I had no idea if we'd been successful
or if the plane had been blown up.
With the search for wreckage of the Korean airliner concentrated on the Thai-Burma border,
a strong suspicion has developed it was the target of a terrorist bomb.
But their mission was about to unravel. Two days later, as they were about to board a
plane to get out of Bahrain, Kim Hyon Hui and her partner were suddenly confronted by
authorities who discovered they were travelling on fake passports.
We were told that flight 585 had exploded and that there were no survivors. We knew
then our bombing operation had been successful.
As they were being searched, the veteran agent Kim Sung-il told his young comrade it was
time to bite down on an ampoule of cyanide hidden in their cigarettes.
He said, "What awaits us is interrogation and eventually death. I have lived a long
time and I am an old man, but you are so young. I am sorry." I knew when an operation failed,
an agent had to kill themselves, so I bit down on the cyanide ampoule. As I did, I remembered
my mother in North Korea, then I blacked out.
The older agent died almost immediately. But Kim Hyon Hui was revived. And after recovering,
she was flown to South Korea to stand trial. There, she refused to break and admit her
role in the bombing for many days, but the interrogators slowly ground her down.
For the first eight days, I kept resisting with lies, but then my interrogators took
me for drives through Seoul and I saw how modern it was and I listened to how the agents
around me spoke so freely. This contradicted everything I'd been told in North Korea. I
realised then I'd taken innocent lives and I expected to be given the death penalty.
And that's what happened. But unlike her victims on flight 858, Kim Hyon Hui would be spared
death. She was pardoned, with the South Korean Government deciding she was merely a brainwashed
victim of the Kim cult. Today she lives in South Korea at an undisclosed location, surrounded
at all times by half a dozen bodyguards, fearful North Korean assassins may strike at any time.
I deserved the death penalty for what I did, but I believe my life was spared because I
was the only witness to this terror perpetrated by North Korea. As the only witness, it is
my destiny to testify about the truth.
But recently, the threats from the North have been targeted at the whole of the South Korea.
Not to mention US bases in Guam, Japan, Hawaii and the continental United States.
This former North Korean agent believes the regime's young untested leader is trying to
tighten his grip on power by playing the tough guy in front of his domestic audience.
Kim Jong-un is too young and too inexperienced. He's struggling to gain complete control over
the military and to win their loyalty. That's why he's doing so many visits to military
bases, to firm up support. He's also using the nuclear program as a bargaining chip for
aid, to keep the public behind him.
To Kim Hyon Hui, the fact that a third-generation of the Kim dynasty is threatening the world
is horrifying. But she knows those suffering the most are the millions doomed to live,
work and die under the heel of the regime, including the family she had to leave behind.
I once heard a story that a defector saw my family in a concentration camp about 15 years
ago. But to this day, I have no idea what happened to my family.
Kim Hyon Hui wasn't so much chosen as compelled by the North Korean regime to carry out a
horrific crime, one that shattered so many lives and one that haunts her every day of
her life.
I regret what I did and I am repentant. I feel I should not hide the truth from the
family members of those who died. It is my duty to tell them what happened.