North Korea says embassy raid in Spain was a 'grave terrorist attack'
31 March, 2019
A break-in at the North Korean embassy in Spain last month was "a grave terrorist attack", a representative from North Korea's foreign ministry said on Sunday (Mar 31) in the North's first official comment on the incident.
The foreign ministry representative also called for an investigation and said North Korea was closely watching rumours that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and an anti-North Korea group were behind the raid.
"An illegal intrusion into and occupation of a diplomatic mission and act of extortion are a grave breach of the state sovereignty and a flagrant violation of international law, and this kind of act should never be tolerated over the globe," the North's state-run KCNA news agency quoted the representative as saying.
An investigation into the raid is already underway in Madrid.
On Wednesday, a Spanish court named Mexican national Adrian Hong Chang as leader of the group who contacted "the FBI in New York five days after the assault" with information related to the incident in the embassy.
Hours after the court statement, the Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) - a dissident group believed to include high-profile North Korean defectors - claimed responsibility for the raid.
A judicial source said on Wednesday that warrants were issued for the group's alleged leader and another suspect after an investigation by a Spanish court found that they broke into the embassy, tried to persuade an official to defect and then stole computer equipment.
According to the court's official document, which was made public on Tuesday, Hong Chang is believed to have travelled to the United States a day after the raid and contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pass on information about it.
It was unclear how the court knew that the man had contacted the FBI, which said on Tuesday it is "our standard practice to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation."
An authoritative US government source said on Wednesday that the FBI received the names of the alleged embassy intruders from Spanish investigators and was looking into the matter at the request of Spanish authorities.
The US State Department has said the US government was not involved in the raid and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Spanish arrest warrants.
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