A South Korean man allegedly abducted by North Korea demanded yesterday that Japan return the remains of his deceased Japanese wife, who was also kidnapped by the communist regime, a news report said.
Kim Young-nam, who was believed snatched from a South Korean beach in the late 1970s, told visiting Japanese media in Pyongyang that Japan should return Megumi Yokota's remains to North Korea.
Fake?
Pyongyang sent what it claimed were Yokata's ashes to Tokyo in 2004, but Japanese tests found the DNA of other people among the remains.
"If [Japan] considers Megumi's remains fake, it should return them to me," Kim was quoted as saying by Kyodo News agency.
North Korea admitted in 2002 to abducting 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train its spies in Japanese language and culture.
It allowed five of them to return home, but said the other eight -- including Yokota, who was kidnapped on her way home from school in 1977 when she was 13 -- were dead.
But many Japanese believe Yokota is still alive.
Kim said his former wife's remains may have been mixed with another person's during her cremation, Kyodo reported.
Kim's mother and sister met with him in North Korea last week -- their first reunion since 1978 when he disappeared from a South Korean beach at the age of 16.
Suicide
At a news conference during his family reunion, Kim said Yokata had suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide at a hospital in April 1994.
He said Tokyo's claims over her ashes were an insult to him and his deceased wife.
North Korea has also accused Tokyo of fabricating the test results, saying it didn't believe Japan could collect accurate DNA data from the remains, which were burned at an extremely high temperature.
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