(2 Aug 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seoul, South Korea – 2 August 2024
1. Various of former North Korean diplomat Ri Il Gyu, who was based in Cuba and defected in November
2. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Ri Il Gyu, former North Korean diplomat based in Cuba:
"My wife first told me not to have (say) a dreadful joke. So I showed her our plane tickets and she couldn’t say words. Then I told her that I have no where else to go and I will do everything in my power to make her happy until the end. Told her to trust me because I would work harder to be more successful. I persuaded her for 20 minutes. And she just stopped talking."
3. Various of Ri talking
4. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Ri Il Gyu, former North Korean diplomat based in Cuba:
"The Kim Jong Un regime will likely be in a very bad temper if they see me speaking publicly in media interviews like this. They could think getting rid of a person, like (me) would serve their interest. But I’m not worrying about it much because the South Korean government is placing a priority on my safety."
5. Various of Ri talking
6. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Ri Il Gyu, former North Korean diplomat based in Cuba:
++TALKING ABOUT NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG UN++
"What stuck with me the most was that his face was so red. I stood right before him. He wasn’t panting but he was out of breath. You can’t hear me breathing? (Demonstrating what it was like). I could hear the sound of his breathing like an asthmatic patient."
7. Close of Ri
8. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Ri Il Gyu, former North Korean diplomat based in Cuba:
"I had heard that when others saw him (Kim Jong Un) for the first time, they were nervous to the point that it wasn’t easy for them to simply say ‘yes.’ At the first meeting, I clearly shuddered – though it wasn’t like I couldn’t answer. But from the second and third meetings, I didn’t suffer with that shuddering. At first, I was nervous and tense. I have heard that there were people who couldn’t respond to him when they first met him."
9. Wide of Ri
10. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Ri Il Gyu, former North Korean diplomat based in Cuba:
"North Korea is an evil regime because it targets your weakest point. That is what guilt-by-association is all about. I may have courage to stand up to Kim Jong Un. But North Korea can just slaughter your parents, kids and wife, just because you stood up against Kim."
11. Various of Ri seated at table
STORYLINE:
When Ri Il Gyu, North Korea’s No.2 diplomat in Cuba, finally decided to flee to South Korea in frustration over his highly repressive, corrupt homeland last November, he finished all necessary prep work alone.
About a week later, one night, he told his family that they should leave Cuba in six hours.
"My wife first told me not to have (make) a dreadful joke. So I showed her our plane tickets and she couldn’t say words," Ri said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday.
His family eventually followed him to go to a Havana airport at dawn next day, taking a flight to a third country and then South Korea in one of the most high-profile and dramatic defections by North Koreans in recent years.
The departure by Ri, 52, a former political counselor at the North Korean Embassy in Cuba, likely angered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un much because that could prompt other North Korean diplomats to think about leaving the country and pose a blow to his grip on the country’s elites, observers say.
Ri said the North Korean Embassy in Cuba has about 20 diplomats, making it the North’s third biggest diplomat mission abroad after ones in China and Russia.
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