A NORTH KOREAN dissident who risked being sent home from China to certain execution has been released, one month after The Sunday Times revealed his plight.

Yoo Sang-joon, 36, was the key activist in an underground Christian network that smuggles North Korean refugees across China to safety in other countries.

He landed in Seoul last week after the Chinese authorities bowed to diplomatic pressure and freed him after four months in secret detention.

His arrival was greeted with joy among the Christian community in South Korea, who had feared for his life. “It’s a wonderful Christmas gift,” said Tim Peters, a pastor who works with the refugees.

The Sunday Times reported on November 18 that Yoo had been arrested. Two days later the Chinese admitted his existence and promised that he would be treated according to normal legal standards.

North Korean agents were demanding his return under a treaty between the two communist allies, even though he held a passport from South Korea. Yoo is one of the most wanted men in Kim Jong-il’s North Korea. “He would have been executed,” said Peters.

Yoo’s wife and daughter died in the North Korean famine of the 1990s and his surviving son died, aged 10, on a trek across the Gobi desert to seek safety in Mongolia.

It was the second time this year that international publicity had saved refugees from deportation back to North Korea.

Three orphaned children held in jail in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, were threatened with a forced return home. They were released and handed over to the South Korean embassy a few days after The Sunday Times published a photograph and letters from them pleading for help. They are now recovering in Seoul and preparing for their first Christmas in freedom.

Refugees who are sent back to North Korea face some of the worst human rights abuses in the world. They have reported beatings, abuse and harsh conditions in camps and prisons. Some have been executed. Pregnant women have suffered forced abortions and the murder of their babies.

Negotiations to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons have taken top diplomatic priority for the outside world. Those talks appeared to be in trouble last week when Pyongyang indicated it would not meet a December 31 deadline.

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