SEOUL: A North Korean soldier who suffered critical gunshot wounds during a defection dash across the border to South Korea has been transferred to a military hospital, a South Korean intelligence official said on Saturday.
The North Korean soldier, 24-year-old Oh Chong Song, was transferred to the military hospital on Friday from a trauma center at Ajou University Hospital south of Seoul, where his treatment for gunshot wounds and pre-existing conditions included two major operations.
“Oh has been transferred to South Korea’s military hospital and South Korea’s intelligence services will soon schedule the security questioning process depending on Oh’s condition,” the intelligence official told Reuters.
The official, who declined to be identified, also declined to provide a specific schedule for Oh’s questioning.
Oh was shot and badly wounded by his fellow North Korean soldiers while fleeing across the border into the South in November.
Three South Korean soldiers brought Oh to safety and he was immediately taken aboard a US Black Hawk military helicopter and rushed into surgery.
“Medical staff at the Armed Forces Hospital will continue to provide proper care and treatment for Oh,” a South Korean defense ministry official.
Surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee accompanied Oh, along with a few South Korean intelligence services agents and other medical crew, as he was airlifted by a South Korean military helicopter to the Korean Armed Forces Capital Hospital in Seongnam, south of Seoul.
“Oh is still recovering from two major surgeries and other minor injuries. He has not gained full strength yet, but his condition has been much stabilized,” said a person familiar with Oh’s condition, who declined to be identified.
Wounded North Korean defector transferred to South Korean military hospital
Wounded North Korean defector transferred to South Korean military hospital
UK child killer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack: police
- Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002
- He suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26
LONDON: One of Britain’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, died on Saturday following an attack in prison where he was serving a life sentence, police said.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, in a case that horrified the country.
Fifty-two-year-old Huntley suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement emailed to AFP.
A spokesperson for the government’s justice ministry said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Aug. 4 2002.
Their disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of police officers and appeals for help.
A photograph of the two girls wearing matching Manchester United football tops became instantly recognizable to many Britons.
Their bodies were found almost two weeks later, dumped in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, aroused the suspicion of police after he gave media interviews claiming to be concerned for the girls’ welfare.
He denied murdering them but was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, gave Huntley a false alibi and was jailed for perverting the course of justice. She now lives under a new identity.
Revelations that Huntley had been the subject of prior rape and sexual assault complaints led to the establishment of criminal checks for anyone working with children.
He had been attacked before in prison, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
“A police investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing,” the spokesperson said, adding that prosecutors would consider bringing charges against his assailant.
