Overseas Deaths of Koreans Raise Doubts

Overseas deaths by South Korean citizens are, by international custom, primarily handled by the local legal procedures of the country where they stay. Therefore, even if there are some questionable deaths, the bereaved family members don't have a place to turn to for a "second opinion," Chosun Ilbo said.

Last year, for example, 53 South Koreans were killed overseas. Most of these cases were settled by the respective foreign authorities, which then informed the relevant families of the deaths. With that, the cases were closed.

But in rare cases, the bodies or the medial records of the dead were referred to the National Institute of Scientific Investigation in Seoul and sometimes NISI discovered a difference cause for the death, raising questions about the initial medical determination done abroad.

On Oct. 1, 1996, for example, a South Korean diplomat working in Russia was killed by an attacker. The Russian authorities' investigation didn't make much headway. In fact, they feared a diplomatic backfire if it would be proved to be an assassination by a North Korean agent, Chosun said.

The diplomat's body was airlifted to Seoul, which was then examined by a team from NISI. The NISI team found a small needle hole in his body during the three-hour examination, which wasn't reported in the Russian medical report. The diplomat was poisoned.

It was the first time for the South Korean authorities to reexamine the case of a Korean citizen who died abroad. "We don't know how many more questionable deaths are there so far," an NISI official told the newspaper.

"We can't do reinvestigation on each and every case of overseas deaths of our citizens. But when a legitimate request is made, the case is referred to us," he said.

It has been more than two months since a South Korean woman in her 20s has been incarcerated in Honduras for an alleged killing of a Dutch woman. The Korean woman went to the country to learn scuba diving.

The Korean woman was convicted of homicide, with subsequent imprisonment. But when a copy of the medical record was re-examined by NISI, led by Suh Joong-suk, 52, head of the forensic science team, it concluded it as a case of "science murder," meaning the coroner had fabricated it to make the case look like a murder, when in fact that was not the case.

The Korean authorities have requested further consultation with Honduras, and a meeting of medical experts between the two countries is also scheduled to be held, Chosun said.

On July 29, 2007, Whang Jong-il, then South Korean political attach? at the South Korean embassy in China, died in hospital after eating a sandwich sold at a convenience store.

The Chinese side concluded that it was myocardial infarction, a sudden heart condition related to the coronary artery. Although that was the same conclusion by the South Korean authorities, the bereaved family members raised the question that the hospital failed to do proper initial medical procedure, wrongly diagnosing Whang's case as food poisoning. They also sued the Korean government for its less forthcoming attitude in its dealings with the Chinese government for fear of offending the giant Middle Kingdom.

For the last three years, a total of 148 South Koreans died while staying abroad. The cause for their deaths sometimes raises questions, a local daily said on Saturday. Among them, less than 10 cases were later relooked by NISI.

South Korea's foreign ministry has yet to have a detailed policy on how to deal with the death of its citizens abroad, the newspaper said.