The case against a North Korean who faces possible extradition from Malaysia to the U.S. on money laundering charges is “inconclusive” and highly politicized, his lawyer said Friday.
Mun Chol-myong, who lived together with his family within the Southeast Asian country, was arrested in May and stays in prison.
The Malaysian government has agreed to extradition, however the 54-year-old is fighting it in court.
The case centers on Mun’s cooperation with a Singaporean company that supplies goods to North Korea, his lawyer Jagjit Singh told reporters after a court hearing in Kuala Lumpur.
Mun, who worked within the neighboring country for nearly three years as a business development manager from 2014, denies any wrongdoing.
“According to me [the extradition request] it is only based on politics,” Singh said.
“We perceive [the case] should be considered mere allegations and unsupported by any evidence,” he added, calling them “very sketchy and ambiguous.”
Singh said three people accused in Singapore last year of supplying luxury goods to North Korea in a similar case were charged with violating U.N. sanctions, but the United States had not requested their extradition.
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He also noted that they remained free on bail pending trial – unlike Mun, whose bail application was rejected because the judge said he was a flight risk.
“We are just pawns in this political battle between North Korea and the Americas,” the lawyer said.
The US case against Mun consists of 4 counts of cash laundering and two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, Singh said.
Prosecutors, without going into details, have previously said the crimes allegedly occurred between 2014 and 2017 and involved “controlled items that can not be exported to North Korea.”
On Friday, Mun, appearing frail, appeared in court in handcuffs. The judge was expected to rule on the extradition request, but postponed his decision until next month.
North Korea has been hit by repeated rounds of crippling sanctions – imposed by the United Nations and countries corresponding to the US – over its nuclear weapons program.
These include attempts to halt the trade in luxury goods as a method to reach the country’s elite.
There have been repeated incidents of illegal trade between Singapore and North Korea through the years. However, the rich city-state suspended trade with North Korea in 2017.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: US extradition offer ‘based on politics’
