Police confirm Hwang died from heart failure

By Kang Shin-who

Police officially confirmed Tuesday that the late North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop died from heart failure.

Hwang, 87, who defected to the South in 1997, was found deceased in a bathtub in his home in southern Seoul on Oct. 10.

Announcing the outcome of an investigation, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency confirmed Tuesday that Hwang, a former secretary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, died from heart failure while taking a bath the day before he was discovered.

Kwak Jeong-gi, an investigator for said, “He had grown so frail physically that guards had had to help him walk up the stairs of his own house since early this year.

“We can’t identify the exact cause of the heart attack. But the death is almost certainly related to his heart.”

Hwang, who lived under tight security, was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in May this year. On the day of his death, the North celebrated the rise of its next leader in Pyongyang.

He was buried at a national cemetery in Daejeon last Thursday.

The government conferred a medal of merit on Hwang, commemorating his efforts to bring democratic changes to the totalitarian regime in the North and bring attention to the human rights abuses in the communist country.