A North Korean correctional officer who was known to harass inmates was recently shot dead with his own gun at a state security office in North Hamgyong Province, Daily NK has learned.
“In late August, a correctional officer with the Orang County Ministry of State Security office was sexually harassing and tormenting a woman in detention in front of her husband when the exasperated woman snatched away the officer’s sidearm and shot him. The incident threw the Ministry of State Security into an uproar,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
According to the source, the couple had been speaking on the phone with a South Korean broker in Musan when they were arrested by state security agents tracking them with a cell phone detector. They were handed over to the Orang County state security office and then jailed to be to interrogated.
The correctional officer who was on guard at the jail where the couple were detained had been drinking during the evening of the incident. He called over the woman and began sexually harassing her, telling her to stroke his face as her husband looked on.
When the woman tried to ignore him, he kicked her and made her kneel. Then he poked her breasts with his sidearm while making all kinds of humiliating sexual remarks.
The enraged husband demanded that the officer stop, but that just made the officer harass the woman even more. Unwilling to take any more of that treatment, the woman snatched the sidearm out of the officer’s hand. She then disengaged the safety and shot three times, killing the officer.
The woman had gained proficiency with firearms during her time in the military, the source said.
The deceased correctional officer was a man in his late 20s from South Pyongan Province. He had a reputation as being a nasty guard who would show up to work drunk and harass the inmates at the jail.
Couple denounced as “spies”
After fatally shooting the officer, the woman retrieved the cell key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and escaped from the state security office with her husband. But they were soon apprehended by the duty officer and other guards, who were drawn by the gunfire. They were beaten savagely and then put back under detention at the state security office, the source said.
“After being briefed on the incident, the provincial state security branch immediately sent agents to Orang County, who denounced the couple as spies conspiring with South Korea. Before the end of the day, they had been sent to a political prison camp,” the source said.
Residents of Orang County who heard rumors about the incident have been critical of the authorities’ response to the shooting, claiming that the woman had been right to kill the guard, the source said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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