Going South: Top North Korean colonel defects

Source: USA Today`

A high-ranking North Korean colonel responsible for overseeing espionage missions against the South defected to South Korea last year, Seoul defense officials announced Monday.

Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said the colonel worked for the North's General Reconnaissance Bureau, which has been linked to a notorious hack into Sony Pictures computers In 2014. Moon provided few additional details at a press briefing in Seoul, Yonhap News Agency reported.

South Korea's Ministry of Unification cited the defection as an example of cracks in the North's leadership.

Yonhap, citing another government source, also said a North Korean diplomat stationed in an unidentified African country and his family defected to South Korea last May.

The revelations came the same day the U.S. and South Korea began joint naval exercises off the Korean Peninsula's southern coast. North Korea, which has expressed outrage over a series of joint military exercises in recent weeks, fired five short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.

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