South Korea said Tuesday that its intelligence service had finished investigating 13 North Korean restaurant workers whose joint defection triggered accusations from Pyongyang that they were kidnapped. A Unification Ministry official said the dozen waitresses and their manager had been "released into society" last week.
They had all been working at a North Korea-themed restaurant in China. Their arrival in the South in April made headlines as the largest group defection for years. While Seoul said they fled voluntarily, Pyongyang claimed they were kidnapped by South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) and waged a vocal campaign through its state media for their immediate return.
For all North Korean defectors, life in the South begins with intensive NIS interrogation that can last for months and is aimed at weeding out possible spies. They are then sent to a resettlement centre for three months' training, after which they are free to start new lives in South Korean society. Arguing that the high-profile nature of the restaurant workers' case made them unusually vulnerable, the NIS had announced in June that they would remain in protective custody rather than being sent to the centre.