SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean missionary who has helped North Koreans escape to South Korea was deported to Seoul on Thursday after eight months in Chinese prison.
Chun Ki-won, 46, was arrested and jailed in December while trying to guide 12 North Koreans into Mongolia, where religious activists were waiting to arrange their defection to South Korea.
A court in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region freed him on Aug. 5 after fining him dlrs 6,040 for helping North Koreans in their attempted border-crossing. It also ordered that the missionary leave China.
Chinese authorities put him on board a flight from the northeastern city of Changchun earlier Thursday, Chun said.
He leads the Seoul-based Doorihana, one of several missionary groups that provide food, shelter and Christian or Buddhist teachings to North Koreans who flee their communist homeland and live in hiding in northeastern China.
Chun said he had helped 170 North Koreans escape to South Korea since 1999, taking them through jungles of Southeast Asia and grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
"My immediate goal now is to learn the fate of the 12 North Koreans I had tried to help and prevent them from being repatriated to North Korea, where they would face detention, or even execution," Chun said.
The North Koreans may still be held in China, he said.
He also will fight to get his belongings, including 8.7 million won (dlrs 7,200) in dollars and Korean won.
"Before I left China, I repeatedly asked Chinese prosecutors to return my money, camera, video-camera and two cell phones," Chun said. "But they refused, although there was no court ruling to confiscate my goods."
Thousands of North Koreans have fled famine and repression in their isolated homeland. Many are believed to be hiding in China, seeking a chance to come to South Korea.
Nearly 700 North Koreans have defected to South Korea this year.