S. Korea Imposes Death Sentence in Jetliner Bombing
A Seoul court today sentenced to death a 27-year-old woman who admitted she blew up a South Korean airliner, killing all 115 people aboard, on orders of Communist North Korea, state radio said.
The radio quoted Chief Judge Chong Sang Hak as saying that defendant Kim Hyun Hui committed a heinous crime and deserved to be executed in line with international conventions that require heavy punishment for air terrorism.
The sentence had been widely predicted.
Seoul officials have frequently said, however, that the government would probably order a reprieve, portraying her as merely a pawn in North Korea’s campaign of belligerence toward the South.
The radio said Kim’s lawyers will decide soon whether to appeal the death sentence.
The former child actress had confessed to planting explosives aboard a Korean Air Lines Boeing 707 in November, 1987, on the orders of Kim Jong Il, son of North Korean President Kim Il Sung.
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