Questionnaires(1993) Addressed to:

The Korean Airline, Korea
The White House, Washington, DC, USA
Daily News, Bangkok, Thai
Baghdad Airport Authority, Iraq
Salmanaya Hospital and the Police of Bahrein
Belgrade Airport Authority and Immigration Office, Yugoslavia
Abu Dhabi Airport Authority, United Arab Emirates
Moscow Airport Authority, Russia
Daewoo Corporation, Korea
Korean National Security Planning Agency, Korea



For the Korean Airline  list

1. Reportedly, as soon as the KAL858 plane was lost on flight, the president of the Korean Airline, Cho Jung Geun, said that the plane got exploded and it was done by North Korean agents or Red Army [Asahi Jurnal, February 26, 1988, p18]. How did he know it so soon and when no investigation had been made by anybody accountable?
2. According to testimonies by the families of the passengers and flight crew members, the Korean Airline did not inform them about the plane missing for more than six hours after it had happened; it was by TV news, neither by a notice from the airline company nor by the government, that those families came about knowing it. How do you explain about the procedure the company had followed, which was certainly abnormal and contrary to the common sense?

3. A stewardess with KAL858, Park Eunmi, came off duty at the airport of Abu Dahb, and there, in her stead, came aboard another steward, Kwon Mikyong, who was going to serve the flight back to Seoul. Stewardess Park later recalled and said to the mother of stewardess Kwon that she heard some communication about the leakage of oil with the aircraft during the flight. This confidential report by stewardess Kwon has been known among all the families of victims. Why don't you disclose the maintenance records, including the last repairs of the aircraft?

4. The KAL airline had worldwide reputation that their planes, with two or more security officers always aboard, could hardly become the target of hijacking attempt [Shukan Sekai, February 4, 1988]. How was it possible that such a watchful security crew had failed to check those explosives which had been left behind in the KAL858 plane cabin by Kim Seung Il and Kim Hyunhee?

5. The KAL was much more strict than the other airlines in their practices of security checking: when the plane arrived at a transfer terminal, all the passengers were requested to leave their seats and vacate the cabin; and all the objects remaining in the cabin, on the floor or seats or in the overhead bins, would be scrutinize, in the meanwhile. Isn't it a mystery that the explosives which those two Kims were supposed to have left in the overhead bin alone wasn't discovered? How do you explain the reason?

6. According to Donga Ilbo, January 19, 1988, Section Chief Kim Yungho at the KAL Bahrein branch, had a talk on the phone with Hachiya Shingichi, the falsely named Kim Seungil, who was very poor in spoken English. But NSPA insisted that Kim Seungil was fluent in English. Who is correct in this contradiction?


For the White House, Washington, DC  list

1. The White House spokesperson then ascribed the KAL858 plane event to an explosion caused by North Korea, referring to those false passports and poison ampules which were allegedly carried and used by the suspects Kim Hyunhee and Kim Seungil. And the spokesperson added that there were other evidences supporting their crimes but it was not proper that those evidences be disclosed "now." What was the reason that kept you from disclosing them? Now, 6 years past, do you still have any reason to keep them secret?

2. According to a KAL report on "Searching Activity," dated December 9, 1987, the U. S. government was then on the satellite-photo taking in search for the wreckages and remains of the KAL plane, with the request for assistance from ROK government. But the results of the U.S. government's searching operations have never been reported in public, causing anxiety and suspicion to the families of the victims. Can you tell us now about how successful, or unsuccessful, your searching operations or the satellite photo-taking were? As we the families desire to see the satellite photos you might have taken then, won't you kindly soothe our 6 years of pains and sorrows by giving us a chance to have a look at those pictures?


For the Daily News of Thailand  list

Your paper of January 13, 1988, reported that the wreckages of KAL858 plane had been found in the Kalen region of Myanmar and that further reports would be forthcoming with more fact-findings. Can you confirm about your report for its sources of information? Do you have any more information collected after your first report?


For Baghdad Airport Authority, Iraq  list

1. Your airport operation with respect to the safety control is known to be highly strict yet as efficient as with other international airports, and it was especially so six years ago when you were in war with Iran. According to Korean Security Planning Agency, the North Korean spy agents, Kim Seungil and Kim Hyunhee, carried a lump of explosives with them into the KAL858 plane at your airport, safely getting through the strict checking-in process. How did you accept, or how did you refuse to accept that allegation by KSNPA?

2. Can you give us your comment in this connection, recalling memories of those of you then on duty, and/or referring to the records of your investigation on the matter from the time?


For Salmanama Hospital and the Police of Bahrein  list

1. This relates to a 14-year old event: KAL858 plane then missing. One of the suspects connected to the plane crash, Kim Hyunhee, who was supposed to have taken poison the airport, was brought to your hospital on December 1, 1987.
She took urgent examination and treatment by Dr. Jacobian. But after having stomach wash, she was found having no trace of poisoning, according to the press quoting the doctor's comments. Could you kindly give us a chance to have a look at the records of her examination and treatment at your hospital?

2. Offenders in crimes of international character are usually, or primarily, subjected to the jurisdiction of those countries where they were arrested. But in the case of KAL plane crash, the Bahrein police had abandoned their jurisdiction of investigation after 15 days of suspect-arrest, and Mayumi (false name of Kim Hyunhee), the criminal, was taken over into the hands of KNSPA, though both governments did not have the criminal transfer agreement. How did it happen, and why?


For Belgrade Airport Authority and Immigration Office, Yugo.  list

1. Kim Seungil and Kim Hyunhee entered the country through Belgrade international airport. How did they report of their names and nationalities or, in other words, what sorts of passports did they have?

2. The Reuter Press, dated January 16, 1988, reported, quoting your spokesperson, that the airport was equipped with the latest high-tech apparatus on the top of its well-trained and highly disciplined security manpower, so that the passage of explosives could never be thought possible. But Kim Hyunhee, after her arrest, insisted, and was accepted by KNSPA, that she, with Kim Seungil, managed to carry the explosives up to Bagdahd airport through the airport of Belgrade, all the way undiscovered. Whose argument was more convincing in the contradiction? Do you still disapprove the statement by Kim Hyunee about the passage of explosives passing through your security checking process?

3. The Korean Airline had a worldwide reputation for its credible security system which was least prone to hijacking. Do you accept that reputation?


For Abu Dhabi Airport Authority, United Arab Emirates  list

KAL(858) plane, which mysteriously disappeared while flying over Myanmar, had stopped by Abu Dhabi airport on November 28, 1987. At Abu Dhabi airport, fifteen persons left the airplane, including Mayumi (Kim Hyunhee) and Hachiya Shingichi (Kim Seungil) who had allegedly left behind them a lump of explosives in the plane, and two flight crew members of the plane, on the shift. Would you kindly confirm who those other eleven passengers were?


For Moscow Airport Authority, Russia  list

KAL(858) airplane went missing over Myanmar on November 27, 1987. Kim Seungil and Kim Hyunhee are known as North Korean spies who had carried explosives into the plane.

According to those North Korean agents' itinerary which had been confirmed by South Korean intelligence, those two Kims arrived at Moscow International Airport at 6 pm, November 12, 1987, from Pyongyang, and left for Budapest, Hungary, six hours later, at 12 o'clock. For that part of their journey, they used their North Korean passports in which, Kim Seungil had his real name, but Kim Hyunhee was falsely named as Kim Okhwa. Could you kindly check over your passenger records to see whether their statement was honest and correct? And may we request for a conformed copy of those records?


For Daewoo Corporation, Korea   list

For those employees of Daewoo who were aboard the KAL(858) plane, their families were inclined to accept the plane crash as a fact that had been caused by the North Korean acts, involving the deaths of all their husbands or sons; and they were preparing for their funeral procedures, by mid of December. Daewoo's CEO Kim Woojung was in France then and, on December 15, he gave an instruction to Seoul that the funeral procedures under way be cancelled, telling that the event was an act of hijacking and those hijacked were alive, not dead. Three or four days later, however, he reversed his order saying the hijacked were all dead so that the steps had to be taken for their funeral ceremony. Chairman Kim was present at the ceremony and gave a condolence lamenting the sorrows of being a small, weak nation. How do you explain about the background of Chairman Kim's initial comments and instruction and his condolence mentioning of a weak nation's sorrow?


Questionnaire addressed to:
Korean National Security Planning Agency (KNSPA)  list

1. Kim Seung-Il and Kim Hyunhee left Pyongyang's Sunan Airport with their North Korean passports, according to NSPA. The passports were prepared, for Kim Seung-Il in his real name, and for Kim Hyunhee in a false name as Kim Okhwa. But you did not explain further about this point. We have doubts about it. What is the difference between a real name and a false name and why did they do that way? We have no doubt that you raised question on this point during your interrogation with Kim Hyunhee. How did she explain about the reason why the North Korean intelligence gave her a false-named passport?

2. Two Kims were said to have arrived in Moscow on 12th of November, at 6 pm, with said passports, and left Moscow six hours later, at 12 o'clock, to arrive at Budapest, Hungary, at 4 am next morning. It's doubtful. Did you examine their arrival in and departure from those two countries, and if so, what material evidences do you have?

3. In relation to the information about those Kims' movements in Austria, then head of Austrian police, or Austrian vice-minister of domestic affairs, disclosed that a stationery form(memo) originated from a hotel in Switzerland was found in their hotel rooms at Ampa Kling where they stayed in Vienna, although they had not been to Switzerland [Asahi Journal, December 25, 1987, p25]. Why did NSPA not mention about the memo form of the Swiss hotel at its press interview? Where did they pick up the memo form, or Who did provide them with it?

4. According to NSPA's explanation, those Kims used their North Korean passports, not Japanese passports, when they were entering Yugoslavia from Austria; for this reason, their Japanese passports did not bear entry stamps of immigration authority at the airport. But Kim Hyunhee said that they had returned their North Korean passports to their connection in Vienna and received Japanese passports, instead. Here you have an important contradiction. Who is correct? Can you give us a logical explanation about this contradiction?

5. The Belgrade airport authority assured that they had the high-tech equipment to check the passage of explosives into the plane and, therefore, anyone carrying such things should have been stopped [Reuters, January 16, 1987]. How did Kim Hyunhee explain the way they got the passage of explosives into the plane through such a strict checking system at Belgrade airport?

6. Likewise, at Iraq's Baghdad airport, due to the high tension with Iran, it was hardly possible even for a tiny object, not a lump of explosives, to get passage at the check-in point where every small thing carried by the passenger was always scrutinized [Asahi Shimbun, January 17, 1987]. How did Kim Hyunhee explain about the way they got the passage at the check-in point, with the lump of explosives taken by either of them? Did you get satisfied with her explanation on this point during your interrogation with her?

7. According to Chosun-ilbo, dated December 2, 1987, besides those two Kims, thirteen(13) persons left the KAL(858) plane at Abu Dhabi airport, including 2 flight crew members leaving on their shift. Who were those 11 other people?

8. Officials with the Korean Airline and other airlines, admitted that flight crew members aboard the KAL(858) plane included at least two security officers, as was usual for all of the KAL's overseas flights [Jugan Dokseo, January 31, 1988]. How was it possible that those two Kims leave explosives in the plane without being discovered under such conditions?

9. As known, the Korean Airline has its unique way of checking for planes and passengers safety. When the plane has arrives at a stopping-by terminal, all the passengers are requested to leave their seats in order to vacate the cabin for a while so that a security checking procedure will be carried out, in the meantime. The checking operation using explosive searching apparatus is supposed to be applied to every and all objects left behind by the passengers. It was a mystery if the explosives left behind by Mr. Hachiya Shinichi and Miss Mayumi in the plane could have stayed safe undiscovered by the searchers. How was it possible according to your opinion?

10. According to NSPA, the explosives carried into the plane by those Kims consisted of Composition C4' 359 grams, contained in a remodeled Panasonic RF-082 radio, and PXL liquid explosive pretended a bottle of liquor. A Japanese military commentator, Ogawa Kazuhiza, in his interview with Shukan Sankei, dated February 4, 1988, said that an aircraft flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters could get blasted with that amount and that sorts of explosives, but there would be an interval of about 8 minutes between the ignition at explosives and the complete blast of the plane itself. Then, there was quite enough time for the flight captain or his assistant to make an emergency communication with the control tower. Why was it impossible, according to your report of investigation?

11. Who took the explosives into the plane? NSPA said Kim Hyunhee took them with her. But she indicated Kim Seung-Il took them, in her written statement. Nevertheless, the purser of the plane, Park Gill Young, in his interview with Chosun Ilbo, dated December 2, 1987, disclosed that the old man did carry nothing with him, and the young woman had only a bag over her shoulder. What is the source for these disparities? We the victims' families are confused with the disparities and contradictions.

12. In her statement Kim Hyunhee wrote that the explosives were hidden and carried in a vinyl shopping bag, together with cigarette cases, etc. in it. But the purser Park insisted that they did not carry anything in their hands, and Kim Hyunhee had a bag only, carrying it over her shoulder [The same interview with Chosun Ilbo]. Again, what is the reason for these expanding disparities?

13. An NSPA investigator, the first to meet with Kim Hyunhee, said that she was of short-haired, with her hair arranged in a schoolgirl's twin-tail style [Dongah Ilbo, December 8, 1987]. But Kim Hyunhee, who made appearance of herself the press interview one month later, had her hair grown very long - too long to be a growth for one month. Perhaps we were being told of two different Mayumis. How had it happened?

14. NSPA told us that Kim Htynhee was born on January 27, 1962, she was a schoolgirl attending Joongshin Middle School in her first-year class, as of November of 1972, and she was a second-year, Japanese language student with Pyongyang Foreign Languages College as of February of 1980. According to the North's 1972 reform of school-year system (one-year kindergarten, 4-year elementary school, 6-year higher middle school), Kim Hyunhee normally should have been about 28 years old by 1987. She was at 25, according to NSPA, however.

15. Dr. Jacobian, who first examined Kim Hyunhee at a Bahrein hospital, denied that she had taken poison, referring to the result of her stomach washing from which no trace of poison was found. But NSPA told us that she took the ampule of poisonous acid in an attempt to kill herself. Who is correct? Was the doctor telling a lie?