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SEOUL, South Korea — A police official said that a former senior member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party who defected to South Korea in 1997 has died.
The official said today that Hwang Jang-Yop is dead but could not offer any additional details. South Korea’s YTN television and Yonhap news agency both reported the death. YTN reported he was found dead at his home.
The 88-year-old Hwang was the chief architect of North Korea’s guiding “juche” philosophy of self-reliance and was one of the country’s most powerful officials when he fled in 1997. Since defecting, Hwang had lived in Seoul under tight police security.
