North Korean diplomat Jo Song-gil, who went missing from Italy in 2018, is now living in South Korea, members of the intelligence committee of the South Korean Parliament reported. This Song-gil’s defection makes him one of the regime's most high profile officials to defect in decades. Song-gil, who was deployed in Rome as acting ambassador went missing in November 2018 after leaving the North Korean embassy.
South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday, "There had been numerous requests for information, so here it is. It is confirmed that former ambassador Jo Song-gil entered South Korea in July last year and is under government's protection.” 48-year-old Song-gil’s whereabouts has since then become a mystery. The North hasn’t officially commented about Song-gil’s deflection yet.
In 2016, Thae Yong-Ho, former deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, fled to South Korea.
Song-gil, the son and son-in-law of high-ranking North Korean officials, disappeared just as his stint in Rome as acting ambassador was about to end. There were reports at the time, that he was seeking asylum with help of Western governments.
A spokesperson for South Korea's National Assembly Intelligence Committee chair Jeon Hae-cheol said Song-Gil had repeatedly expressed his wish to go to South Korea. Thae Yong-ho, who defected to the South in 2016, was reported in a BBC report as saying, penalties could be imposed on Song-Gil’s family in the North and that where a defected diplomat lives, determines the levels of treatment or punishment to be given to his relatives left in the North.
Hae-cheol said that Song-gil’s deflection wasn’t made public for over a year out of concern for his family's safety. Not much is known about Song-gil’s daughter, except that the teen returned to North Korea accompanied by female staff from the North Korean embassy after requesting to be reunited with her grandparents.
