South Koreans Assail North in Jet’s Bombing

About 200,000 people gathered Saturday in Seoul and other cities to condemn the November bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed all 115 aboard, amid reports from Tokyo that a woman who confessed to the attack will be granted amnesty.

Saturday’s rallies were organized by the government-sponsored Korea Anti-Communist League to protest the presumed bombing of a Korean Air passenger jet by two North Korean agents allegedly on orders from Kim Jong Il, the son and heir apparent to North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

A Japanese news agency, meanwhile, reported that Kim Hyon Hui, 26, who confessed to the attack on behalf of North Korea, will be granted amnesty and freed later this year.

She will be given a public trial, probably in the spring, but will probably not be freed until after the Summer Olympics that begin Sept. 17 in Seoul, Tokyo’s Kyodo News Service quoted “informed sources” as saying in a dispatch from Seoul.

‘Living Evidence’

The sources said the government will decide on the timing of her amnesty after “taking into consideration the sentiment of the South Korean people and reactions from North Korea.”

The sources said Kim faces capital punishment, but the government is inclined to grant her amnesty “as valuable living evidence” of the tragedy.

Korean Air Flight 858, traveling from Baghdad, Iraq, to Seoul, vanished over the Andaman Sea near Burma on Nov. 29 during the Abu Dhabi-Bangkok leg of the flight. Kim and her companion, Kim Sung Il, 70, left the flight in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and went to Bahrain. Both were questioned in Bahrain by police who grew suspicious after the plane disappeared.

The elder Kim died of self-induced cyanide poisoning but the woman survived her suicide attempt and has been in the custody of South Korean officials for a month.

She publicly confessed that the two, as agents for North Korea, planted a bottle of liquid explosive and a detonator aboard the Boeing 707 before disembarking in Abu Dhabi.

Kim Hyon Hui said she was told her orders came from Kim Jong Il and that the bombing was an effort to scuttle the Olympic Games.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the bombing.

About 150,000 protesters in Seoul and tens of thousands in other South Korean cities called for increased vigilance against possible North Korean terrorism, an apology from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and continued efforts to ensure a trouble-free Olympics.

The North Korean threat of a Communist Bloc boycott of the Olympics faded this month when China, the Soviet Union and most other Communist nations said they would attend.

The South Korean government has said it will launch a diplomatic campaign as part of efforts to isolate Pyongyang’s “barbaric terrorism” from international society.

The United States announced that Washington has added North Korea to its list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and revoked permission for U.S. diplomats to talk with their North Korean counterparts in neutral settings.

Several other friends of South Korea, including Britain and Italy, have also condemned the plane’s destruction.

The Japanese government has been advising its nationals to refrain from visiting North Korea, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said Saturday.