According to both Russian and Chinese language sources, in 2002, the then leader of North Korea – Kim Jong Il – publically acknowledged that ‘rogue’ elements within the intelligence services of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) had initiated a programme of ‘kidnapping’ a non-specified number of Japanese citizens – but that the upper echelons of the DPRK government at the time had not been involved or informed.
![](https://thesanghakommune.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011-1.jpg?w=282&h=232&crop=1)