N Korea behind south Korean jet bombing in 1987

The United States government conducted its own investigation into the mid-air bombing of a South Korean jet in 1987 and concluded it was an act by North Korea, a set of declassified State Department documents show. US government officials interrogated Kim Hyun-hui, a self-confessed North Korean terrorist responsible for the bombing of Korean Air 858, which killed 115 people, according to the dossier. Kim, traveling with a fake Japanese passport through Europe, made a failed attempt to commit suicide shortly before being arrested. She is now living in South Korea as a housewife, according to (Yonhap) news agency. "In a situation we controlled Ms. Kim picked out the photographs of three North Koreans who had contacted her under alias in Belgrade and Budapest, two in Belgrade one in Budapest," a diplomatic cable sent from the US Embassy in Seoul to Washington read. It is among 57 documents posted in June on the department's web site. "Then three photographs were picked out of a collection of 26 shown her. In each case the individual she picked was in fact the photograph of a North Korean investigation department agent posted in that city at the time she was there," it added. "We consider that part of the compelling independent evidence that she was working for North Korea." The document also showed that the FBI carried out a linguistic analysis of Kim's statement, "which demonstrates that the words she used are North Korean (dialect)." South Korean officials also "strongly suspected" North Korea's involvement from the beginning of their probe and reached the same conclusion, another document shows.