Trained North Korean assassin now a pastor
What history marked as a trained assassin from North Korea is now living life in South Korea as a protestant minister.
30 years ago, Kim Shin Jo and 30 other trained assassins managed to slip through the border into the woods and within a couple hundred meters from the president’s residence at that time. They were ordered to assassinate South Korea’s president at that time, Park Jung Hee.
During Kim’s interview with reporters that time, he declared, “I came from North Korea to kill president Park Chung Hee. I came to cut the throat of Park Chung Hee.
“We were taught that America had turned South Korea into a colony,” he said, “and our mission was to remove the puppet government.”
Their planned assassination however was intercepted by a South Korean police officer. The ensuing gunfight resulted in the death of more than 30 South Koreans and all the North Korean commandos save for one who made it back to North Korea, and Kim Shin Jo, who was captured. He was held for months in interrogation. He was befriended by a South Korean army general.
“I tried to kill the president. I was the enemy,” Kim said. “But the South Korean people showed me sympathy and forgiveness. I was touched and moved.” He was later released after results of investigation showed he never fired a shot during the bloody incident. He restarted his life in South Korea, got married and had children. He then became a minister, a symbol of hope for the country, in the midst of the current tension between the two states.
Source: CNN
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