United Nations • Winning a lawsuit against North Korea is rare. Collecting millions of dollars in damages from the isolated country is pretty much impossible. But an Israel-based civil rights group thinks it has found a way, starting with a North Korean ship that's been held, against the country's wishes, in a Mexican port for the past year.
The Shurat HaDin law center began its pursuit after winning a $330 million U.S. District Court judgment in April over the abduction of a South Korean-born pastor in China and his presumed torture and killing in North Korea 15 years ago. Now the center is aiming for whatever North Korean assets it can find.
It has focused on the Mu Du Bong, a cargo ship that accidentally ran aground off Mexico last July. Despite North Korea's protests, a panel of experts that monitors U.N. sanctions against the country for its nuclear and missile programs asked the Mexican government not to release it.
The ship's North Korean parent company, Ocean Maritime Management Co., has been under sanctions ever since another ship it operated was found to be carrying two Cuban fighter jets, missiles and live munitions hidden under a cargo of sugar.
Seizing the Mu Du Bong requires that a Mexican court recognize the U.S. court's judgment. Civil courts in Mexico City and in the state of Veracruz have declined to hear Shurat HaDin's request, but it is now appealing.
The plan is to sell the ship to the highest bidder, the money going to the South Korean pastor's family.
"There are so few North Korean assets around the world that an opportunity like this, to seize the boat, should not be allowed to simply slip away out of fear of North Korea or other political consideration," Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Shurat HaDin's director, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
North Korea has never admitted the abduction and torture of the pastor, U.S. resident Kim Dong Shik.
Normally, foreign states can't be sued in the United States, but an exception in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allows it against countries that are listed as state sponsors of terrorism. Shurat HaDin filed suit over Kim's disappearance just one day before the George W. Bush administration removed North Korea from that list.
FILE - In this July 28, 2015 file photo, under the portraits of the late North Korean leaders, Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, ambassador of the Permanent Mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations Jang Il Hun, right, is joined by councilor Kwon Jong Gun as he speaks during a new conference at the DPRK mission in New York. Jang and other North Korean officials have protested the holding of a North Korean cargo ship in Mexico, which an Israel-based law center is now trying to seize as damages on a rare $330 million judgment it won this year in U.S. District Court. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
In this April 9, 2015 photo, a journalist sits near the North Korean cargo ship Mu Du Bong, anchored in the port of Tuxpan, Mexico, after it accidentally ran aground off Mexico in July 2014. Despite North Korea's protests, a panel of experts that monitors U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile programs asked the Mexican government not to release the boat. North Korean diplomats have said the ship was carrying nothing prohibited by sanctions. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
In this April 9, 2015 photo, the North Korean cargo ship Mu Du Bong sits anchored in the port of Tuxpan, Mexico, after it accidentally ran aground off Mexico in July 2014. Despite North Korea's protests, a panel of experts that monitors U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile programs asked the Mexican government not to release the boat. North Korean diplomats have said the ship was carrying nothing prohibited by sanctions. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
