SEOUL (AFP) — South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime, an official said Wednesday.
Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in 1997.
He remains under police guard at a secret address against any attempts by the North to assassinate him. Since his defection, Hwang has only travelled abroad once, to Washington in 2003, despite many invitations from other countries.
"He can now travel abroad if he wants," a South Korean spy agency official told AFP, refusing to give details.
Liberal South Korean presidents for the past decade practised a "sunshine" engagement policy with the North and blocked Hwang's overseas trips for fear of souring relations.
In February conservative president Lee Myung-Bak took office and vowed to raise North Korean rights issues.
Hwang, 85, was an architect of the North's ruling philosophy of "juche" or self-reliance and once tutored current leader Kim, whom he now criticises as a dictator.
He plans to visit the US for a month next April and give lectures on North Korean human rights and strategy for its democratisation, according to an unidentified aide quoted by Yonhap news agency.
Hwang has received death threats in the past.
In early 2003 a bloodstained picture of him, with the face pierced by a kitchen knife, was delivered to an aide along with a message threatening to kill high-ranking defectors.
In August 2004 a letter delivered along with a meat cleaver and bottles of poison described Hwang and aide Kim Dok-Hong as "anti-unification traitors."
South Korean officials last week announced the arrest of Won Jeong-Hwa, 35, saying she spied for the North after settling in the South in the guise of a defector. They said one of her missions had been to locate Hwang.
Kim, who defected along with Hwang, in January won a long legal battle to secure a passport so he could speak overseas about the Pyongyang regime.
The foreign ministry had refused Kim a passport, saying he could be a target of North Korean assassination attempts and the visits could cause diplomatic friction.
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