N.Korean embassy raid ringleader in hiding: Lawyer

The head of a shadowy North Korean dissident group wanted by US authorities for his connection to the February raid on Pyongyang's embassy in Madrid, is in hiding from hit squads, his lawyer told CNN.

Adrian Hong, the leader of the group, Cheollima Civil Defense, was not in his apartment when US marshals arrived on April 18 and his lawyer, Lee Wolosky, said on Monday that he does not know his client's current location.

Video of the encounter shared with CNN by a source close to Hong shows six uniformed officers entering the embassy and shouting "police" before beginning a search.

US authorities' interest in Hong is not publicly known, but another Cheollima Civil Defense associate, Christopher Ahn, was arrested last week in Los Angeles on a provisional warrant from Madrid, law enforcement officials said.

"He certainly fears for his safety. We do have reason to believe that North Korean hit squads have been dispatched to target Hong and perhaps others, and he is taking necessary steps to evade those hit squads," Wolosky said.

A Spanish judge last month said Hong was the ringleader of a group of 10 men that carried out the embassy raid, which was described in court documents as a violent encounter.

According to Spanish court documents, Hong and other members of Cheollima Civil Defense beat and handcuffed embassy employees before taking a senior official to a basement room and urging him to defect from North Korea.

Members of the dissident group escaped from the compound in embassy vehicles with two thumb drives, two computers and two hard drives.

--IANS

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