A court has ruled that North Korea must pay damages to Choi Min-kyung, head of the Family Association of North Korean Confinement Victims, who has claimed she was tortured in a detention facility after being forcibly repatriated to North Korea.

Judge Cho Jung-min of Civil Settlement Division 93 at the Seoul Central District Court ruled entirely in favor of Choi in the damage suit she filed against North Korea.

Claiming she suffered human rights violations at the hands of North Korea, Choi filed the lawsuit in July of last year, seeking 50 million won.

She defected from North Korea in 1997 and was forcibly repatriated in 2008 while staying in China. She claimed that she subsequently suffered human rights violations, including sexual sadism, physical violence, and inhumane torture, for about five months in North Korean detention facilities such as the State Security Department in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province.

Choi's legal team maintained that a lawsuit could be brought in a South Korean court, based on the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, which defines the entire Korean Peninsula as its territory and stipulates that North Korean residents are also citizens.

At the time the lawsuit was filed, the North Korean Human Rights Documentation Center stated, "This case holds historic significance as the first lawsuit brought by a victim of human rights violations born in North Korea."

Because there was no way to notify North Korea of the lawsuit, the court proceeded with the trial through methods such as service by public notice.

Service by public notice is a procedure where, when court documents cannot be delivered, the court posts the contents on a bulletin board or official gazette and deems the documents to have been delivered.

However, as with previous civil lawsuits filed against North Korea, it is expected that North Korea will not comply with the payment of compensation for emotional distress.

Previously, in February of last year, the bereaved family of Lee Dae-jun, an official killed by the North Korean military in the West Sea, won a damage suit they filed against North Korea.

(Photo: Yonhap News)