Kim Dong-shik (1947 – disappeared January 16, 2000) was a

Korean-American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

Protestant minister who went missing in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in January 2000. His missionary and humanitarian work in China had involved aiding

North Korean defectors Since the division of Korea after the end of World War II, North Koreans have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons. Such North Koreans are re ...

there, and evidence eventually emerged that the North Korean regime was responsible for his disappearance. In 2015, a U.S. federal court awarded

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

to his family after determining that Kim had likely died in a North Korean prison camp after being abducted from China by North Korean operatives who regarded Kim's activities as a threat to the regime.

Background

Kim was born in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

in 1947. He moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Illinois as a young man, becoming a

permanent resident Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with such ...

of the United States. He served as minister of the Chicago Evangelical Holiness Church. In the 1990s, Kim came to the attention of North Korean authorities by aiding North Korean defectors in China, and by evangelizing to North Korean athletes attending the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. In late 1999, Kim was in northeastern China, where he had established shelters and a school for orphaned and handicapped refugees.

Disappearance

On January 16, 2000, Kim was boarding (or, according to some sources, was forced into) a taxi outside a restaurant in

Yanji Yanji (; Chosŏn'gŭl: 연길, ''Yeon-gil;'' Hangul: 옌지, ''Yenji;'' alternately romanized as Yenki) is a county-level city in the east of China's Jilin Province, and is the seat of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. Its population i ...

, a Chinese city near the North Korean border, when unknown men jumped in after him and the vehicle sped away. Although Kim's family suspected North Korean involvement in his disappearance, little solid evidence about his fate emerged until 2004, when a North Korean defector to South Korea told authorities he had seen Kim in a cell at the Ministry of State Security office in

Hoeryong Hoeryŏng () is a city in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea. It is located opposite Jilin Province, China, with the Tumen River in between. Sanhe (三合鎮), in Longjing City, is the closest Chinese town across the river. Hoeryŏng is the bir ...

– a North Korean town across the border from Yanji – shortly after his abduction. In 2005, a Chinese national of Korean descent confessed in a South Korean court that he had aided North Korean agents to abduct Kim and transport him across the border to North Korea. In January 2005, a number of Illinois lawmakers, including then-senator

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

, jointly signed a letter to North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, describing Kim as a "hero" and requesting information from North Korea as to his whereabouts. Intelligence reports suggested that Kim had died on an undetermined date in a North Korean prison camp in the outskirts of

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

Lawsuit

In 2009, Kim's son and younger brother, both U.S. citizens, brought a lawsuit against North Korea in a U.S. federal court, seeking damages for Kim's torture and murder. Although the

Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) is a United States law, codified at Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), and 1602–1611 of the United States Code, that established criteria as to whether a foreign sovereign nation ( ...

(FSIA) usually protects foreign governments from being sued in U.S. courts, an exception exists for countries designated as

state sponsors of terrorism "State Sponsors of Terrorism" is a designation applied by the United States Department of State to countries which the Department alleges to have "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism". Inclusion on the list imposes ...

, including North Korea. North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit, which was initially dismissed by the court for lack of first-hand evidence that Kim had been tortured and killed by the North Korean regime. However, in December 2014, an appeals court overturned the dismissal, stating that evidence of North Korea's involvement in Kim's abduction, together with testimony from expert witnesses about widespread torture in North Korean prison camps, were sufficient for the family to seek damages. On April 9, 2015, the court handed down a

default judgment Default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of either party based on some failure to take action by the other party. Most often, it is a judgment in favor of a plaintiff when the defendant has not responded to a summons or has failed to appear ...

that Kim had been abducted by North Korean agents, and had likely died in a North Korean prison camp after suffering torture there. His family was awarded damages of $330 million. The ''Times of Israel'' reported that "North Korea is not expected to pay the damages, but lawyers will seek the confiscation of North Korean assets such as bank accounts and company shares."

Aftermath

In May 2019, a North Korean cargo ship, ''Wise Honest'', was judicially seized in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

by the U.S. government for allegedly transporting and selling North Korean coal in breach of

international sanctions International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect in ...

. U.S. federal judges ordered that the vessel be sold to compensate the family of Kim Dong-shik, and also the family of

Otto Warmbier Otto Frederick Warmbier (December 12, 1994 – June 19, 2017) was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion. In June 2017, he was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died ...

, an American tourist who had died in 2017 shortly after being repatriated in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

to the U.S. from North Korea, where he had spent more than a year in custody on a charge of

subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

. In both cases, U.S. federal courts had found North Korea liable for the men's deaths.

Notes

References