Hits and misses: Notable North Korean assassinations or attempts

North has denied carrying out some of the killings and not commented on others. Some of the most notable assassinations or attempts it is suspected of doing:

Traitors cousin Lee Han-young, a nephew of one of the former wives of the country’s second leader Kim Jong Il, was found dead of gunshot wounds in front of a Seoul apartment in 1997. Lee had defected to South Korea through Switzerland in 1982, but Seoul kept his arrival secret until 1996, when his mother also fled the North. Blast in Yangon North Korean agents set off a bomb meant for South Korea’s leader while he was visiting Burma in 1983. President Chun Doo-hwan narrowly escaped the attack, but more than 20 people were killed, including four Cabinet ministers and his ambassador to Yangon. One North Korean agent was shot to death by police, a second was executed. South Korean president A team of 31 North Korean commandos slipped undetected into South Korea in 1968 and came within striking distance of the Seoul presidential palace. South Korean security forces managed to repel the assault at the last minute. The only commando that was captured said he had come to “slit the throat of (then-President) Park Chung-hee.” High-profile defector In 2010, two agents posing as defectors were arrested in a plot to assassinate Hwang Jang-yop, a former Workers’ Party secretary who remains the highestlevel North Korean to seek asylum in the South. South Korean officials said both agents were majors in North Korea’s main army intelligence agency and were under orders to slit Hwang’s throat.