LONDON -- The second in command of North Korea's embassy in London defected to South Korea with his family, officials in Seoul said Wednesday, describing him as "sick and tired" of Kim Jong Un's government.
Thae Yong Ho, a career diplomat, was a key official at the embassy, in a residential area of west London, and is thought to have escorted Kim Jong Chol, the North Korean leader's older brother, during his trip to the U.K. last year to attend an Eric Clapton concert.
After several days of rumors, South Korea's unification ministry confirmed Wednesday that Thae, who is thought to be in his late 50s, was now in Seoul with his family.
"They are now under the Seoul government's protection and relevant institutions are proceeding with necessary procedures," Jeong Joon-hee, a ministry spokesman, told reporters, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Defectors who held senior political or military positions within North Korea are extensively debriefed by the South Korean intelligence agency, and then offered to U.S. military intelligence. They generally do not go through the kind of resettlement program for regular defectors -- where they learn things such as how to use a credit card and the Internet -- but often end up at a government-linked think tank.
The South Korean government, which has been taking a tough approach to North Korea since its nuclear test in January, used Thae's escape to take another swipe at the government in Pyongyang.
"This case shows that North Korean elites view that there is no hope in their country," Jeong said. "It also indicates that North Korea's regime's internal solidarity is weakening."
South Korean officials did not disclose how or when Thae arrived, but The Guardian, quoting a fellow student at Thae's son's school, suggested the family had "disappeared" sometime in July. Thae had spoken publicly about living in London with his wife and said that his son attended high school in Acton, in west London. He also has mentioned an older son who had graduated from a university with a degree in medicine or public health.
North Korean diplomats generally must leave one close family member in Pyongyang -- the regime's insurance against defections -- and it was not clear whether Thae had managed to take all of his family with him.
Thae had worked at the North Korean Embassy in London for about 10 years, Yonhap said. Previously, he worked at its now-closed embassy in Denmark and spent a short period of time at its embassy in Sweden, it said.
A spokesman for the British Foreign Office declined to comment.
Thae was known in London for attending political and cultural events and, at times, seemed good-natured, even humorous, as he joked in English about the high cost of life in capitalist London, acquaintances said.
Warwick Morris, a former British ambassador to South Korea who had met Thae on about four occasions, said that the diplomat was "smooth and sophisticated in a slightly North Korean kind of way."
But Thae also displayed the particular brand of public devotion to his government shown by North Korean diplomats. In 2014, for instance, he scolded British journalists during a speech at a London bookstore for allegedly exaggerating the security level at a major event in Pyongyang, comparing it to what reporters might face if attending an event at Buckingham Palace.
"There has been so much ideological work by the ruling class of the British," he said, according to a video of his speech posted on YouTube. He added that they have "brainwashed" the working class.
More than 29,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have said they wanted to leave North Korea's harsh political system and poverty.
North Korea allows only citizens deemed most loyal to travel abroad, and Thae's fleeing marks the latest in several defections.
In April, the South Koreans announced the arrival of a colonel from North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau, the primary spy agency and the department believed to be behind the hacking of Sony Pictures in 2014 and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in 2010. That same month, South Korea confirmed that 13 North Koreans working at a state-run restaurant in China -- a key source of foreign currency for the regime -- had defected.
Thae becomes the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect since 1997, when Hwang Jang-yop, who was serving as the ambassador to Egypt, sought asylum in the United States.
Information for this article was contributed by Karla Adam of The Washington Post and by Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/18/2016