North Korea says its escaped diplomat is 'human scum'

Pyongyang harshly condemned North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho, who recently defected to South Korea, in a statement reported by the isolated country's state-run media on Saturday.

"This one clearly deserves legal punishment for crimes he has committed," the statement said, "but he proved that he is human scum that has no basic loyalty as a human and no conscience and morality by running away to survive and abandoning the homeland and parents and siblings that raised and stood by him." The North Korean government also accused Thae of "embezzling a lot of state funds, selling state secrets and committing child rape."

Thae was North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain before he fled to the South Korean embassy. "I was surprised to learn of his defection, but not totally," said John Nilsson-Wright of London's Chatham House think tank. "Anyone who is as bright as he is can see the difference between the official lines of the government and the reality of the outside world."

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