U.S. Court decides indemnification of $2.3 billion to North Korea for’Pueblo capture’… The greatest amount ever

-The US federal court ruled that North Korea pay 2.3 billion dollars (about 2.58 trillion won) to the crew of the U.S. Pueblo who were captured by North Korea in 1968 and their families. It is the largest ever in North Korea-related compensation.

US media such as Voice of the United States (VOA) reported on the 24th (local time) that the Washington DC federal court released the ruling on the Pueblo case. The court admitted a total of $76.63 million, including $13.10 million to $23.8 million per person, for 49 crew members, $22.5 million for 90 members of the family, and $179.21 million for 31 survivors. .

This is the largest amount of compensation related to North Korea ever issued by a US court, the VOA said. The foreign media reported that the amount of compensation was large because the total number of manuscripts in this case reached 170. Until then, the highest amount was $51.3 million (approximately 560 billion won) in the case of Otto Warmbier, who died after being detained by North Korea in 2016.

On January 23, 1968, the U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship Pueblo was captured by a North Korean naval survivor during a mission in the East Sea, 40 km from the North Korean coast. North Korea released 82 crew members and one remains after 335 days of detention only after signing an apology that the United States had invaded the territorial waters of North Korea in December of that year. After returning to the United States, they filed a lawsuit in 2018 claiming that they suffered from torture and cruelty in North Korea. The British Guardian reported that the Pueblo crew suffered serious aftereffects after being released from North Korea. Many crew members had to undergo surgery due to torture sequelae, and some fell into alcohol and drugs to forget the pain. The Guardian reported that most of the crew’s lives were devastated, including some crew members who tried to commit suicide. During the period of detention, the court set a compensation amount of $10,000 per person per day and added compensation for mental damage. In addition, the court said the amount of compensation was doubled in the sense of punitive damages to North Korea. It is unlikely that North Korea will acknowledge the ruling and pay compensation. The United States can make compensation for North Korea by seizing its overseas assets. However, finding North Korean assets scattered throughout the United States and around the world is unlikely to be realistically easy.

U.S. law stipulates that Americans cannot file lawsuits against other countries, but with the exception of terrorist support countries. North Korea was designated as a terrorist support country in 1988 and was lifted by the Barack Obama administration in 2008, but was re-designated by the Donald Trump administration in 2017.

The Pueblo, which was captured in 1968, is currently on display in Pyongyang. According to foreign sources, the name of the Pueblo still remains on the list of warships currently held by the US Navy.

Reporter Eun-taek Lee [email protected]