China is expected to deport a South Korean missionary, who was indicted on charges of assisting North Korean defectors, to his home country, officials and activists said here yesterday
Cheon Ki-won, 46, a member of "Durihana Mission," underwent a trial in Hailar, a city in China's Inner Mongolia region, Monday. He was arrested near the China-Mongolia border last December, while attempting to smuggle 12 North Korean escapees out of China.
The Chinese court decided to make a ruling on Cheon in one or two weeks, and is expected to deport him after sentencing him with fines or detention, the activists said.
"China did not confirm anything about the trial. But sources there expected the Chinese government would deport him to South Korea sometime soon," said Park Hyun-ja, a pastor with Durihana Mission, a Christian group that has been helping North Korean asylum seekers.
Prior to Cheon's trial, a South Korean diplomat asked Beijing to deal with Cheon and two other missionaries, also detained for helping North Korean defectors, on humanitarian grounds, officials in Seoul said.
Last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Cheon and another South Korean, Choi Bong-il, and a U.S. citizen, Choi John Daniel, were taken into custody for "the smuggling of persons and crossing borders."
After a flood of North Koreans seeking asylum in foreign missions in China began in March, the Beijing government began cracking down on nongovernmental organizations helping North Korean in their bids for asylum.
At least 64 defectors have since made it to South Korea after entering diplomatic missions there. Two more North Koreans are currently holed up in the South Korean consulate in Beijing.
Officials in Seoul expected Beijing would also allow the two defectors to travel to the South as early as this week.