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Was North Korea’s vital 'transformation computer' taken in raid on Madrid embassy?

A view of North Korea's embassy in Madrid, Spain - AP
A view of North Korea's embassy in Madrid, Spain - AP

The group of men who briefly took control of the North Korean embassy in Madrid in February are believed to have made off with vital decryption computers that Pyongyang needs to communicate with its diplomatic missions and agents overseas, according to a former North Korean diplomat.

Thae Yong-ho, who was the deputy head of the North Korean embassy in London until he defected with his family in 2016, said in a post on his website that the “transformation computer” that was apparently taken “is considered more important than human lives”.

The loss of the equipment potentially compromises the unbreakable code that Pyongyang uses to relay its orders overseas, Mr Thae said, and would “critically harm” the regime.

The alleged leader of the attack on the North Korean mission in Madrid on February 22 - Adrian Hong Chang, of Mexican nationality - offered the stolen information to the FBI five days later, a Spanish court said Tuesday. He had acted of his own accord, it added.

No group has taken the credit for the raid, although there have been suggestions that it was carried out by a shadowy organisation called the Cheollima Civil Defence, which has declared itself to be a government in exile. Also known as Free Jeoson, it claims to be planning the overthrow of the government of Kim Jong-un.

A woman walks past North Korea's embassy in Madrid, Spain - Credit: AP
A woman walks past North Korea's embassy in Madrid, Spain Credit: AP

According to Spanish authorities, at least 10 men carrying replica weapons entered the embassy and tied up staff before gathering up computers and employees’ mobile telephones.

According to sources from the investigation cited in Spanish media, the attack was well prepared, with the streetlamps near the embassy working only at low levels on the day of the assault. Other security systems surrounding the embassy building had been disabled.

At 4.34pm on February 22 Mr Hong Chang allegedly called at the embassy and asked to see the commercial attaché and only ranking diplomat at the mission, Yun Sok So.

The two men had already met two weeks earlier when Mr Hong Chang had posed as a businessman interested in opportunities in North Korea.

According to the judicial investigation, while Mr Hong Chang was waiting in the patio for the attaché to be called, he let the other nine members of the gang onto the premises. Armed with machetes, knives, iron bars and their fake guns, the group “began to attack violently the residents until they overcame them and were able to immobilise them with handcuffs and cable ties”.

Two patrol officers rang the embassy doorbell and Mr Hong Chang answered the door, making sure to first put on a blazer with a Kim Jong-Un badge in the lapel and present himself as a high representative of the mission. The intruder told the officers that everything was calm inside the building.

“The world is reporting on the attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, but North Korea has been keeping quiet over the incident for a month," Mr Thae said in his blog. “I believe this is because [the attackers] stole the ‘transformation computer’, a core classified item in the embassy.

“In a North Korean embassy, the transformation computer is considered more important than human lives and it deciphers telegrams shared between Pyongyang and the embassy overseas”, he said.

North Korea uses a code that is based on pages and words from novels that only the sender and the recipient know, Mr Thae said, making it impossible for Western intelligence agencies to break.

If, however, the program that contains the key to the code can be provided to cryptoanalysts then it would be relatively straightforward to read North Korea’s messages, he said. And if its codes are broken, then North Korea must replace its entire method of communication, which will take time and interfere with its ability to interface with its diplomats.

Mr Thae’s suspicions are supported by the North Korean government summoning its three most important ambassadors - to Beijing, Moscow and the United Nations - to Pyongyang last week for discussions.

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