Analysts believe North Korea has one of the most aggressive biochemical weapons programmes
When Im Chun-yong made his daring escape from North Korea, with a handful of his special forces men, there were many reasons why the North Korean government was intent on stopping them.
They were, after all, part of Kim Jong-il's elite commandos - privy to a wealth of military secrets and insights into the workings of the reclusive regime.
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But among the accounts they carried with them is one of the most shocking. North Korea used mentally or physically handicapped children to test North Korea's biological and chemical weapons.
"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says that your best contribution to society is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."
Daughter given up
The former military captain says it was in the early 1990s, that he watched his then commander wrestle with giving up his 12-year-old daughter who was mentally ill.
The commander, he says, initially resisted, but after mounting pressure from his military superiors, he gave in.
Im watched as the girl was taken away. She was never seen again.
One of Im's own men later gave him an eyewitness account of human-testing.
Asked to guard a secret facility on an island off North Korea's west coast, Im says the soldier saw a number of people forced into a glass chamber.
"Poisonous gas was injected in," Im says. "He watched doctors time how long it took for them to die."
'Widespread practice'
But Im's is the first account of mentally-ill or physically challenged children being used.
Kim Sang-hun believes there are at least three to five experimental weapons sites.
Security analysts believe Kim oversees one of the most aggressive and robust biochemical weapons programmes in the world.
Today it is estimated the country has accumulated a stockpile of more than 5,000 tonnes of biochemical weaponry; from mustard gas, to nerve agents such as sarin, to anthrax and cholera.
See the complete story at: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/07/20097165415127287.html
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