Kim Hyon-hui

Kim Hyon-hui (김현희, 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.

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.

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.

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 Mayumi Hachiya (蜂谷 真由美) along with Kim Seung-il, who posed as her father and used the name Shinichi Hachiya (蜂谷 真一).

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.