1. Kim Hyon-hui, known as Okhwa, is a former North Korean agent, responsible for the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987, which killed 115 people.
22 Facts About Kim Hyon-hui
1. 2.
Kim Hyon-hui was arrested in Bahrain following the bombing and extradited to South Korea.
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In recent years, Kim has publicly expressed regret about the bombing and she has provided information about the state of affairs in North Korea as well as the possible state of abductees.
4.
Kim Hyon-hui was born in Kaesong on 27 January 1962 but her family settled in the country's capital, Pyongyang.
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Kim Hyon-hui's father was a career diplomat and as a result, the family lived in Cuba for some time.
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Kim Hyon-hui was originally trained as an actress, and starred in North Korea's first Technicolor film.
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Kim Hyon-hui's training included martial arts, physical fitness, and three years of Japanese.
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Later, Kim Hyon-hui testified that Taguchi was known to her as Lee Un-hae.
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Kim Hyon-hui was sent to Macau to learn Cantonese so that she would be able to pose as Chinese when sent on overseas missions.
10.
Kim Hyon-hui was then allowed to travel through Europe with an older man, known to her as Kim Hyon-hui Seung-il.
11.
In 1987, Kim Hyon-hui was given an assignment to plant bombs on KAL 858.
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Kim Hyon-hui was told that the order came directly from Kim Jong Il, and was handwritten.
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Kim Hyon-hui was told that if she were successful, she would be able to return and live with her family and would not have to work as an agent afterward.
14.
Kim Hyon-hui was paired with Kim Seung-il who was recovering from a stomach operation.
15.
Kim Hyon-hui attempted to do the same, but a Bahraini police officer snatched the cigarette out of her mouth before she could fully ingest the poison.
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Kim Hyon-hui later wrote an autobiography entitled The Tears of My Soul and donated the proceeds to the families of the victims of Flight 858, writing the autobiography under the South Korean-style spelling of her name, Kim Hyun Hee.
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Kim Hyon-hui repeated this on a 2018 National Geographic documentary about the Kim family.
18.
Kim Hyon-hui was featured by a Japanese television documentary that dramatised her life and revealed how Taguchi used to sing lullabies to her children, from whom she had been separated after being abducted.
19.
Kim Hyon-hui has offered analysis to news organisations about current affairs in North Korea.
20.
North Korea denies that Kim Hyon-hui was born in the North, and regards her entire biography to be a fabrication of the South.
21.
Some North Korean-run schools in Japan have falsely claimed that Kim Hyon-hui was a South Korean agent.
22.
Kim Hyon-hui married a former South Korean agent handling her case in 1997 and has two children.