Kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung

The South Korean dissident leader Kim Dae-jung, later president of South Korea, was kidnapped on August 8, 1973 in Tokyo, Japan.

Background

In the 1971 presidential election, Kim represented the Democratic Party, challenging incumbent President Park Chung-hee of the Democratic Republican Party, who ruled as an authoritarian leader. Kim was defeated by the small margin of 969,999 votes. Despite the victory, Park saw Kim, who called for democracy, as a threat to the Third Republic military dictatorship. Following the election, an assassination attempt staged as a car accident was attempted on Kim, leaving him with a permanent injury on his hip joint. Kim fled to Japan and began an exile movement for democracy in South Korea based in Japan and the United States.

Kidnapping

Around noon of August 8, 1973, Kim was attending a meeting with the leader of the Democratic Unification Party held in the Room 2212 of the Hotel Grand Palace in Tokyo.

At around 13:19, Kim was abducted by a group of unidentified agents as he walked out of the room after the meeting. He was then taken into the empty Room 2210 where he was drugged and became unconscious. Later Kim was moved to Osaka and later to Seoul, South Korea.

Kim was later quoted as saying that a weight had been attached to his feet aboard the boat heading toward Korea, indicating that the kidnappers had intended to drown Kim by throwing him into the sea. They were, however, forced to abandon this plan as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force began a pursuit of the kidnappers' boat. Subsequently Kim was released in Busan. He was found alive at his house in Seoul five days after the kidnapping.

According to some reports U.S. Ambassador Philip Habib intervened with the South Korean government to save Kim's life.

NIS inquiry

On October 24, 2007, following an internal inquiry, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) has admitted that its precursor, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), undertook the kidnapping, saying it had at least tacit backing from then-leader Park Chung-hee.

Fiction

The film KT (2002) depicts the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung.

References

External links

• CNN Profile of Kim Dae-jung
• Time Asia Profile of Park Chung-hee