N. Korea Kept POW Alive 50 Years

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A former South Korean soldier who was captured during the Korean War and held by North Korea for the past 50 years returned home Wednesday. Landing at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, Jun Yong-il, 72, said that he has never forgotten that he was a South Korean solider.

"I have been serving for the South Korean military for 50 years," he said, holding hands with an unidentified woman from North Korea who is seeking asylum.

The details of Jun's time in North Korea, and his escape from the isolated communist nation, were not yet known, though he has said that the government prevented him from leaving.

He and his unidentified companion flew from China, where they were in custody since Nov. 13. They were arrested in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou while trying to board a flight to South Korea with forged passports.

"I told Chinese authorities that I must go to South Korea as I have served for the South Korean military," he said.

China on Dec. 17 told South Korea, which had been seeking Jun's release, that it would would allow him to return home on humanitarian grounds, said Park Joon-woo, a Foreign Ministry official.

"This is a precious Christmas present," President Roh Moo-hyun said. "I'm very happy that he returned earlier than expected."

Jun joined the South Korean army in 1951 and was captured by Chinese troops who fought alongside North Korean forces in the 1950-53 Korean War. Fighting stopped in 1953 but the North and South are still technically at war after the conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Jun could get up to $334,000 in unpaid salary and other compensation, depending on what kind of information about North Korea he can provide, the Defense Ministry said.

Jun, who was a private first class at the time of his capture, would be promoted to staff sergeant before he is formally discharged from the military, it added.

Until his arrest in China, the South Korean government assumed he was dead. Jun earlier had someone contact the South Korean embassy in Beijing for help, but the representative was turned away because Jun's name didn't appear on any lists of living prisoners of war.

More than 30 South Korean POWs have returned home since 1994 after escaping the impoverished North. Seoul believes that the North still holds 300 South Korean POWs captured during the war. Pyongyang denies it.

While China has a treaty with Pyongyang obliging it to send home fleeing North Koreans, it routinely lets them leave if their cases become publicly known. Beijing has allowed hundreds of North Koreans fleeing their homeland to leave for South Korea after seeking asylum in embassies and other foreign offices in China.

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