For Immediate Release April 13, 2015

ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP WINS HISTORIC $330 MILLION JUDGEMENT AGAINST
NORTH KOREA ON BEHALF OF FAMILY OF KIDNAPPED KOREAN PRIEST

US COURT FINDS REV. KIM DONG-SHIK WAS ABDUCTED, TORTURED, MURDERED BY
PYONGYANG INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

(WASHINGTON, DC ) Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center, a Tel-Aviv based civil
rights organization that has pioneered the use of legal actions against
terrorist organizations and regimes that support them, has won a historic
legal victory on behalf of the family of Reverend Kim Dong-Shik, a Christian
missionary and social activist who was abducted by North Korean agents
inside China in January 2000. The United States District Court for the
District of Columbia awarded the family $330 million against the government
of North Korea (DPRK). This included $15 million dollars each to Kim's son
and brother, as well as $300 million in punitive damages.

Reverend Kim was tortured to death in a prison camp in North Korea by agents
of the DPRK's intelligence service. The lawsuit was brought in 2009
against the DPRK and its intelligence service by Reverend Kim's family.
Shurat HaDin represents Reverend Kim's son and brother who are American
citizens.

Kim a key activist in the North Korean "underground railroad" was working to
assist those seeking to leave this oppressive regime. The civil action,
brought in 2008, alleged that the DPRK brutally kidnapped the priest and
then tortured and starved him to death in a North Korean political prison
camp. Pyongyang has never admitted its involvement in Reverend Kim's
abduction nor provided the family with any information concerning his death.

The court decision marks the first time that an American court has concluded
that a foreign regime which abducts an individual who is then never heard
from again, has the burden of proving that he has not been murdered.

The family was represented by attorneys Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Tel-Aviv,
Robert Tolchin of New York and Meir Katz of Maryland. An appeal was
successfully drafted and argued by attorney Asher Perlin of Florida.

When refugees of North Korea managed, at the risk of certain death if
caught, to escape to China, they would find shelter in secret safe houses
religious humanitarian groups had established. In response, the DPRK
dispatched intelligence agents to China to abduct the defectors as well as
the humanitarian workers who assisted them. Reverend Kim served as a
missionary providing humanitarian and religious services to the families of
North Koreans seeking asylum in China. In April 2005, a DPRK intelligence
agent was arrested by a South Korean court for planning and carrying out
the abductions of civilians from China, and forcibly bringing them to
North Korea following the instruction of senior DPRK officials. The agent
confessed that he last saw Reverend Kim in the custody of North Korean
intelligence agents after he handed them over to them. Reverend Kim was
murdered in a North Korean prison camp following many months of torture.

Initially, the federal court refused to find North Korea liable, insisting
that the plaintiffs provide actual proof of Reverend Kim's torture and
subsequent murder. Because he was never seen again after his abduction
to North Korea was impossible for the family to establish. Plaintiffs
attorneys argued, however, that given all the documented reports of the
torture and extra-judicial killing being carried out by the DPRK, there
could be no doubt concerning Reverend Kim's fate.

The court wrote in its decision that it was awarding both Kim's son and his
brother a million dollars in compensatory damages for each year of the 15
years that he has been missing.
As the court wrote: "Accordingly, Han Kim and Yong Kim will be awarded a
judgment of $15,000,000 each against North Korea in compensatory damages,
amounting to approximately $1,000,000 per year since Reverend Kim’s
initial abduction in 2000. This calculation is within the range of damage
awards in similar cases that involve abduction and torture by a non-immune
foreign sovereign."

The family is now investigating all the possible avenues to collect the
judgment against North Korean assets including seizing bank accounts, real
property and shares in foreign companies in the United States and abroad.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat Hadin, stated: "This is an
important human rights decision that will be utilized in all political
abduction cases going forward. We are grateful that the court has found that
once we proved the kidnapping of Rev. Kim by North Korean intelligence and
brought human rights experts to testify about the horrific conditions in the
political detention camps, the burden must be on Pyongyang to show he was
still alive after so many years. Virtually no one has ever returned from the
camps and been able to testify about the fate of individual Korean
prisoners. We are proud that an Israeli NGO was able to assist this family
of a Korean priest living in the US and help to bring them a measure of
closure. This is an unprecedented case and its comes at a vital time when
the US is being urged to deliver Kim Jong-un a long overdue sanction. There
was no reason to take this human rights abusing government off the State
Department's watch list and we urge the US to put Pyongyang back on."

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Tel.: +972 - 03 7514175, Email:
nitsanad@zahav.net.il