Korean Air Flight 858 Korean Air Flight 858 was a scheduled international passenger flight between Baghdad, Iraq and Seoul, South Korea. On 29 November 1987, the aircraft flying that route exploded in mid-air upon the detonation of a bomb planted inside an overhead storage bin in the airplanes passenger cabin by North Korean agents. The two agents, acting upon orders from the North Korean government, planted the device in an overhead storage bin before disembarking from the aircraft during the first stop-over in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. While the aircraft was flying over the Andaman Sea to its second stop-over in Bangkok, Thailand, the bomb detonated and destroyed the Korean Air Boeing 707-3B5C. Everybody on board the aircraft, including the 104 passengers and 11 crew members, most of whom were South Koreans, were killed. The attack occurred 34 years after the Korean Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War on 27 July 1953. The two bombers were traced to Bahrain, where they both took ampules of cyanide hidden in cigarettes when they realised they were about to be taken into custody. The male of the pair died, but the female, Kim Hyon Hui, survived and later confessed to the bombing. She was sentenced to death after being put on trial for the attack, but was later pardoned by the President of South Korea, Roh Tae-woo, because it was deemed that she had been brainwashed in North Korea. Kims testimony implicated Kim Jong-il, former leader of North Korea, as the person ultimately responsible for the incident. The United States Department of State specifically refers to the bombing of KAL 858 as a terrorist act and, until 2008, listed North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Since the attack, diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea have not significantly improved, although some progress has been made in the form of two Inter-Korean Summits. Kim later released a book, The Tears of My Soul, in which she recalled being trained in an espionage school run by the North Korean Army, and being told to carry out the attack personally by Kim Jong-il. She was branded a traitor by the DPRK after seeing South Korea and becoming a critic of North Korea. Kim now resides in exile, and under constant tight security, fearing that the North Korean government wants to kill her. Being a culprit I do have a sense of agony with which I must fight, she said at a press conference in 1990. In that sense I must still be a prisoner or a captive—of a sense of guilt.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 16:51:49 +0000
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