Woman held in Korea over children’s deaths

AUCKLAND: After weeks of silence from New Zealand police over the status of a homicide investigation into the remains of two children found in suitcases in Auckland, a woman was apprehended after a stakeout of her South Korean apartment yesterday.

Seoul’s National Police Agency confirmed a 42yearold woman had been arrested in the city of Ulsan. She is accused of murdering her children, aged 7 and 10, in 2018 in Auckland.

Police in New Zealand are seeking to extradite the woman through the Korean courts to face two charges of murder.

As the woman was leaving Ulsan police station yesterday to be taken to Seoul, she was photographed with a hooded jacket pulled over her face.

The woman repeatedly said, ‘‘I didn’t do it,’’ Korean’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

The woman was arrested at 1am Korean time (4am New Zealand time) in Ulsan, a port city on Korea’s southeast coast.

‘‘Police arrested the suspect at an apartment in Ulsan on Thursday following a stakeout with tips on her whereabouts and CCTV footage,’’ the National Police Agency said in a statement.

‘‘She’s been found to have arrived in South Korea after the crime and has been in hiding ever since.’’

South Korean news website chosun.com reported the children who died were a boy and girl.

New Zealand police had requested an arrest warrant be issued by the Korean courts for the woman under the extradition treaty.

Korean and New Zealand police, in conjunction with Interpol, managed to track her whereabouts in Ulsan via her medical records and phone number, Korean media outlets reported.

Detective Inspector Tofilau Fa’amanuia Vaaelua, of Counties Manukau CIB, said the investigation had had ongoing assistance from South Korean Ministry of Justice, South Korean Prosecution Service and the Korean National Police Agency.

The homicide investigation was launched after the remains of two primary schoolaged children were uncovered on August 11 in suitcases bought by the occupants of a property in Moncrieff Ave, Manurewa.

The suitcases were bought by the residents unwittingly as part of an online auction for the abandoned contents of a storage unit in another South Auckland suburb.

Police later confirmed the bodies of the children in the suitcases had likely been stored in the Papatoetoe Safe Store storage facility three to four years before being discovered.

Immigration records show the arrested woman had arrived in Korea in July 2018.

Police in New Zealand have not confirmed the 42yearold who was arrested as the mother of the two children.

South Korean police said the woman was born in South Korea and later moved to New Zealand, where she gained citizenship.

The woman now remains in custody in South Korea. A review at the Seoul High Court would determine whether she should be extradited, National Police Agency official Park Seunghoon said. —