Kim Hyon-hui (, born 27 January 1962), also known as Okhwa, is a former North Korean agent, responsible for the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987, which killed 115 people. She was arrested in Bahrain following the bombing and extradited to South Korea. There she was sentenced to death but later pardoned.

North Korea denies that Kim was born in the North, and regards her entire biography to be a fabrication of the South. Some districts in Japan fund North Korean-run schools which falsely claimed that Kim was a South Korean agent. According to Kim's testimony, she was taught Japanese in connection to her mission by Yaeko Taguchi, one of at least 13 Japanese abducted by North Korea.

In recent years, Kim has publicly expressed regret about the bombing and she has provided information about the state of affairs in North Korea as well as the possible state of abductees.

Early life 
Kim was born in Kaesong on 27 January 1962 but her family settled in the country's capital, Pyongyang. Her father was a career diplomat and as a result, the family lived in Cuba for some time. Kim excelled as a student and in after-school activities.

She was originally trained as an actress, and starred in North Korea's first Technicolor film. In 1972, Kim was selected to present flowers to the senior South Korean delegate at the north–south talks in Pyongyang. After graduating from high school, she initially enrolled at Kim Il Sung University, before transferring to the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, where she studied Japanese. However, she had barely begun her studies when she was recruited for work.

Espionage training
Soon after joining the North Korean intelligence agency, Kim was given a new name, Ok Hwa, and sent to live in a compound outside of Pyongyang. The compound was mentioned by Kim as Keumsung Military College, yet the name wasn't mentioned by anyone else before or since. There, Kim spent seven years learning spycraft. Her training included martial arts, physical fitness, and three years of Japanese. Kim's Japanese instructor was Yaeko Taguchi, one of many Japanese kidnapped by North Korea.  Later, Kim testified that Taguchi was known to her as Lee Un-hae (李恩惠, 리은혜). Additionally, students at this facility were shown propaganda films. At the end of her training, Kim was rigorously tested. Part of her final exam required her to infiltrate and memorise a document from a mock embassy.

She was sent to Macau to learn Cantonese so that she would be able to pose as Chinese when sent on overseas missions. They were also trained to shop in supermarkets, use credit cards and visit discos: amenities that did not exist in their homeland.

Kim was then allowed to travel through Europe with an older man, known to her as Kim Seung-il (金勝一). This was part of her extensive preparation to complete a mission that was of great importance to the ruling Kim family. They flew first from Pyongyang to Moscow, from where they travelled to Budapest, where they were given fake Japanese passports and began posing as a father and daughter touring Europe together. Then they flew to Baghdad to prepare for the airplane bombing.

Korean Air Flight 858 

In 1987, Kim was given an assignment to plant bombs on KAL 858. She was told that the order came directly from Kim Jong Il, and was handwritten. She was told that if she were successful, she would be able to return and live with her family and would not have to work as an agent afterward. She was once again paired with Kim Seung-il who was recovering from a stomach operation.

She was travelling with a fake Japanese passport under the name of  along with Kim Seung-il, who posed as her father and used the name . The two travelled through Europe and eventually met other North Korean agents in Belgrade who provided them with the materials to complete their mission. Once they had left the bomb behind (hidden in a radio device) in a luggage rack of KAL 858, Kim Hyon-hui and Kim Seung-il disembarked in Abu Dhabi and travelled to Bahrain. The two terrorists were apprehended in Bahrain after investigators discovered that their passports were fake. Kim Seung-il bit a cyanide pill that was hidden in a cigarette and died. Kim Hyon-hui attempted to do the same, but a Bahraini police officer snatched the cigarette out of her mouth before she could fully ingest the poison. She was hospitalised and then later interrogated.

After Bahrain was convinced she was actually a North Korean, she was flown to Seoul, South Korea under heavy guard, bound and gagged. At first, she insisted that her name was Pai Chui Hui, an orphan from northern China who had met an elderly Japanese man with whom she was travelling. She denied any sexual involvement with her partner Kim Seung-il. However, the fact that the only form of Chinese that she spoke, Cantonese, is a southern Chinese dialect, was inconsistent with her claimed northern Chinese origin.

According to testimony at a United Nations Security Council meeting, Kim was taken on several occasions outside of her prison cell to see the prosperity of Seoul. The prison authorities also showed her TV shows and news reports showing the affluent lifestyle of South Koreans and the freedom for South Koreans to speak dissent and criticise their government. In North Korea, she had been taught that the South was a corruption-riddled fiefdom of the United States and that poverty was widespread.

After eight days, Kim broke down, admitted that she was in fact a North Korean and confessed the details of her role in the bombing of Flight 858, as well as Kim Il Sung's personal involvement in the scheme.

Aftermath 

For her role in the bombing of KAL 858, Kim was sentenced to death in March 1989.  However, South Korean president Roh Tae-woo pardoned her later that year, saying that she was merely a brainwashed victim of the real culprit, the North Korean government.  She later wrote an autobiography entitled The Tears of My Soul and donated the proceeds to the families of the victims of Flight 858, writing the autobiography under the South Korean-style spelling of her name, Kim Hyun Hee.
Publishers Weekly, in its 1992 review of the book Shoot the Women First by Eileen MacDonald, described Kim as "robot-like" and "wholly submissive to male authority".

In an interview with Washington Post correspondent Don Oberdorfer, Kim said that she'd been led to believe the bombing was necessary to aid the cause of reuniting the peninsula.  However, the sight of Seoul's prosperity made her realise she'd "committed the crime of killing compatriots."

In March 2009, when meeting family members of Yaeko Taguchi, she mentioned that Taguchi may still be alive, and in connection with this she visited Japan in July 2010. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, she donated one million yen ($15,600) to the victims, out of gratitude for the preferential treatment she had received in Japan during her previous visit.

She was also featured by a Japanese television documentary that dramatised her life and revealed how Taguchi used to sing lullabies to her children, from whom she had been separated after being abducted.

Kim currently lives in an undisclosed location and remains under constant protection for fear of reprisals from the North Korean government.

Kim has also offered analysis to news organisations about current affairs in North Korea. During the 2013 Korean crisis, Kim suggested on Australian television that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was too young and inexperienced, was "struggling to gain complete control over the military and to win their loyalty." She also commented that he was "using the nuclear programme as a bargaining chip for aid, to keep the public behind him."

In an interview with BBC, Kim said that North Korea just pretended to be friendly on the issue of the 2018 Winter Olympics, and its priority still is the nuclear programme.

Personal life 
Kim married a former South Korean agent handling her case in 1997 and has two children. She lives in an undisclosed location in South Korea.

According to a BBC interview in 2013, her family left behind in North Korea was arrested and sent to a labour camp.

Works 
 Kim, Hyun Hee. The Tears of My Soul. William Morrow & Co, 1993,

See also

 Mayumi (film)
 North Korea's illicit activities

References

External links
 Picture of Kim
 Kim Hyun Hee Former North Korean Agent
 2013 interview on Australian television

1962 births
20th-century criminals
Bombers (people)
Living people
North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens
North Korean expatriates in China
North Korean expatriates in Macau
North Korean defectors
North Korean mass murderers
North Korean prisoners sentenced to death
North Korean spies
People convicted of murder by South Korea
People convicted on terrorism charges
People from Kaesong
Prisoners and detainees of South Korea
Prisoners sentenced to death by South Korea
Recipients of South Korean presidential pardons
Women sentenced to death
김현희 (金賢姬, 1962년 4월 15일 ~ )는 대한항공 858편 폭파 사건, 1987년 11월 29일 일명 'KAL기 폭파 사건'을 일으킨 범죄자이다. 범행 후 사형 판결을 받았지만, 사면되었다. 본관은 경주 김씨이다.

김현희의 KAL858 폭발은 대선 1개월 전 발생했다.

당시 YS, DJ, 노태우의 3파전이었으며 유력한 후보는 DJ,YS, 노태우 순이었다. 

이 KAL 858 사건의 가장 큰 수혜자가 노태우였고 최종적으로는 당시 대통령이던 전두환이었다.

드라마 재벌집 막내아들에서 나오듯이 당시는 
Ys와 DJ의 분열로 인해 1212의 주역이던 노타우가 유리해진 상황이었고  민주투사 출신으로 민주화를 성공시킨 YS와 DJ에 대한 빨갱이 몰이를 한창하던 전두환 시절이어서 이 사건은 노태우 당선에 결정작인 역할을 하였다.

생애 
조선민주주의인민공화국 평양시에서 태어나 평양여대 한국어문학이론과 고전문학 대학원을 차석 졸업했고, 공작에 투입되기 전까지 일본인 납북자 다구치 야에코(田口八重子)로 추정되는 이은혜(李恩惠)로부터 개인 집중교육을 받았다. 경찰에 잡히기 직전에 하치야 신이치()라는 일본명으로 활동한 공범 김승일(金勝一)과 음독 자살을 도모했지만, 김현희는 자살에 실패한 후 입에 재갈이 물린 채 대한민국으로 압송됐다.

이후 사형 선고를 받았으나, 북한에 대한 정보를 좀더 캐내기 위한 차원에서 사면되었다.

어렸을 적에는 아역으로 《사회주의 조국으로 돌아간 영수와 영옥》에서 영옥의 어린시절 역할을 맡았다.

이력 
 외교관인 아버지 김원석(金元錫)과 교사인 어머니 임명식(林名植) 사이에서 태어났고, 태어난지 얼마 안 지나서 아버지의 부임지인 쿠바로 갔다가 4살 때 평양으로 돌아갔다. 여동생 김현옥(金賢玉, 남편은 심장마비로 사망), 남동생 김현수(金賢洙)와 김범수(金範洙, 15세 때 피부암으로 사망)가 있다고 알려져 있다.
 1972년 남북조절위 대표로 평양을 방문한 이동복 전 국회의원과 화동으로 꽃다발을 전달한 김현희, 그리고 이 장면을 촬영한 전 일본공산당 기관지 신문 아카하타 평양특파원 하기와라 료가 39년 만인 2011년 7월 12일 서울에서 다시 만났다.
 1987년 11월 29일 하치야 마유미()라는 일본명으로 가장하여, 대한항공 858편의 폭파 범행(수사결과)
 1989년 2월 3일 검찰(서울지검)에 의해 살인, 항공기폭파치사, 국가보안법 위반 혐의로 불구속 기소.
 1990년 3월 27일 대법원, 김현희 사형 확정 판결.
 1990년 4월 12일 노태우 대통령 특별 사면
 후에 외교관인 친아버지를 포함한 가족이 강제수용소에 수용된 것을 알게 됨.
 1991년 6월 2일 수기집 〈이제 여자가 되고 싶어요〉발간.
 1997년 12월 28일 사면 이후 자신을 경호했던 전직 안기부 직원과 결혼.
 현재 정부의 특별 경호속에 대한민국 내 모처에서 거주.
 2009년 2월 조갑제닷컴의 조갑제대표와 인터뷰를 했다.
 2009년 3월에 방송인터뷰를 했다.
 2010년 일본정부의 초청으로 7월 20일부터 4일 간 일본을 방문해 일본인납북자 가족을 만났다. 이때 대한민국 정부의 돈으로 시간당 천만원에 가까운 호화 도쿄 헬기 관광을 해서 논란이 되기도 했다.
 2013년 1월 15일 MBC ‘마유미의 삶, 김현희의 고백'에 출연해 2003년 11월 방송된 ‘PD수첩-16년간의 의혹, KAL기 폭파범 김현희의 진실’ 편에 대해 왜곡보도라고 강력하게 비판했다. 당시 ‘PD수첩’은 KAL기 유족 취재를 통해 ‘김현희가 진범이 아닐 수도 있다’는 의혹을 제기했다.

관련 작품 
 1990년 《마유미》 - 당시 김현희의 역할은 배우 김서라가 맡았다. 김서라는 KAL기 폭파 당시의 김현희와 신체 사이즈 및 혈액형은 물론, 생일까지 같았다.
 2010년 《大韓航空機爆破23年目の真実〜独占金賢姫11時間の告白＆完全再現ドラマ・私はこうして女テロリストになった…」》, 일본 TBS - 배역 : 정한비

논란 
KAL기 폭파 유가족 등이 지속적으로 토론을 요청하지만 무시한 채 모처의 보호를 받고 있다고 통일뉴스가 보도했다. 심지어 재심 청구를 하라고 해도 무시했다. 현재 대구 모처에 기거하며 지방 경찰청의 경호를 24시간 받고 있다고 한다.

같이 보기 
 김정일정치군사대학(구명칭: 금성정치군사대학) - 공작원 훈련교육기관
 인민무력부 정찰총국

저서 

 《이제 여자가 되고 싶어요》 전2권
 《사랑을 느낄때면 눈물을 흘립니다》

외부 링크 

 [MBC PD수첩] 16년간의 의혹 KAL 폭파범, 김현희의 진실 (2003년 11월 18일 방송)
[한홍구 tv] KAL 858기 폭파사건, 거짓과 진실, 그리고 헛소리

각주 

1962년 출생
살아있는 사람
조선민주주의인민공화국의 공작원
북한이탈주민
중국에 거주한 조선민주주의인민공화국인
대한민국의 개신교도
조선민주주의인민공화국의 살인자
대한민국의 살인자
대한민국의 범죄인