This Man Was Able to Defect to North Korea Due to Misjudgments by Military Commanders

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] It has been revealed that the on-site commanders at the eastern front line’s frontline area during the defector Kim’s defection incident on the 1st perceived it as a ‘defection’ rather than a ‘return to the North.’ Due to the frontline commanders’ misjudgment of the situation, the response, including securing Kim’s custody, was delayed.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff deployed 17 personnel, including the Director of the Combat Readiness Inspection Office, to investigate the entire incident. As a result, it was confirmed that Kim, who defected to the North, was captured on the military’s CCTV camera crossing the General Outpost (GOP) barbed wire fence at 12:51 PM on the 1st. However, the CCTV monitoring soldiers missed this scene. The Joint Chiefs explained that the monitoring soldiers could not properly confirm the situation due to the object identified on the CCTV camera being very blurry and issues such as blind spots in the surveillance cameras. Although an alarm sounded and six personnel, including the platoon leader, were dispatched to the scene, they only checked for damage to the fence and reported ‘no abnormalities.’

The military’s three GOP surveillance cameras clearly recorded Mr. A climbing over the southern fence and disappearing into the reed field after crossing the northern fence. However, even when the unit later replayed the recorded footage, they again missed the fact that Mr. A crossed the fence and defected to the North. Due to a time discrepancy between the time entered on the storage server and the actual filming time during video playback, they failed to properly confirm the defection scene and misjudged it as not an unusual situation. Instead of reviewing the footage from the time when the person crossed the fence, they watched footage from an unrelated time and judged there was no problem.

A military official said, “According to work guidelines, synchronization of equipment time should be done twice a day, but this was not properly carried out, resulting in about a 4-minute difference between the time recorded on the server and the actual filming time.”

Accordingly, it was confirmed that the command and control room chief of the battalion independently concluded the situation and did not report to the higher command or the battalion commander.

Due to the military’s failure in initial response, Kim was effectively given enough time to reach the DMZ. Around 9:17 PM, Kim was captured by thermal imaging equipment (TOD) near our side’s ‘Preservation Observation Post (GP)’ within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), but the battalion commander thought he was a defector, not a returnee to the North. The Joint Chiefs recognized Kim’s defection incident at this time. Due to the battalion commander’s misjudgment, the initial response was delayed, and Kim crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) into North Korean territory around 10:49 PM the same day.

The military denied any suspicion of Kim’s involvement in espionage activities. Shortly after the defector crossed the MDL, four unidentified individuals were identified on the TOD on the North Korean side. Some speculated that these individuals might have come to greet the defector from the North.

Regarding this, the Joint Chiefs stated, “At around 12:43 AM on the 2nd, four unidentified individuals were identified on the TOD, but considering that the defector moved northeast about four minutes later, the time gap and movement direction suggest there was no contact.”

North Korea has not yet made any particular statement regarding Kim’s defection. When defector Kim (26) defected to the North in July 2020, North Korea sealed off Kaesong within 4 to 5 days, convened an emergency meeting of the Political Bureau, and issued a COVID-19 quarantine alert.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.