An activist who is on parole after serving time for spying for North Korea has been arrested for espionage again. Kang Soon-jeong, the former vice chairman of the South Korean chapter of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification, an outlawed pro-Pyongyang group, was arrested on Tuesday for providing “national secrets” to Pyongyang, police said. Kang was also co-chairman of a civic group that led efforts to topple the statue of U.S. general Dougas MacArthur in Incheon last year.

Kang is currently an advisor for five activist groups including the Tongil(Reunification) Solidarity and Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for spying in 1996 for involvement in the planned visit to the North by the delegation of the alliance’s South Korea chapter to express condolences on the death of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in 1994. He was granted parole in 1998 but failed to meet the terms of his probation to report to prosecutors every two years. Police worked independently of the National Intelligence Service and prosecutors for several months on suspicions that Kang was still spying for the North.

The Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification was involved in violent protests opposing the relocation of U.S. Forces Korea headquarters to Pyeongtaek and against a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement earlier this year.

The Seoul District Prosecutors Office earlier indicted an official with the group identified as Woo (77) on charges of giving a computer disk with his pledge of allegiance to Pyongyang to a North Korean official who took part in anniversary celebrations for the 2000 inter-Korean summit on June 15, this year. The NIS, prosecutors and police are all working to bring espionage charges against activists. One spy ring allegedly consisting of former student activists was busted last month, with suspicions spreading into the inner circles of power.

(englishnews@chosun.com )