Abductee: Chong Se-hon
Recorded Date: July 30th, 2013


Profile of Abductee

Name: Chong Se-hon
Date of birth: April 13th, 1898
Place of birth: Gwang-ju, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Last address: 36 Janggyo-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul
Date of abduction: Unknown
Place of abduction: an acquaintance’s house (around Supyo-dong)
Occupation: Section Chief of Korean Electric Power Corporation
Education/Career: Unknown
Dependants: Wife, 2 sons


Profile of Witness

Name: Hong Yeong-hee (born in )
Relation: First daughter-in-law
Type of Witness: Indirect witness


Summary of Abduction

- The abductee was a section chief of Korean Electric Power Corporation and none of any specific organizations he was involved.
- He was abducted at a house of Chang Jik-sang, a friend of him. The abductee was playing Baduk (a kind of Korean chess) with his friend.
- Nothing about the abductee was informed after the abduction.


Detail of the Abduction

Q. What did your father in law do for a living at the time of abduction?
He was a section chief of Korean Electric Power Corporation. As far as I know, he didn’t participate in any other organizations.

Q. How was he abducted?
According to my mother-in-law and my husband, My father-in-law and his friends almost always gathered in Mr. Jang Jik-sang’s house and they played Baduk there. On the day my father-in-law was abducted, they were playing Baduk as always and all they were abducted at the same time.

Q. When was he abducted?
I don’t know the exact date he was abducted. I was not married at that time and my mother-in-law was not a kind of person writing such things in detail and keeping them. She just arbitrarily decided the date of her husband’s death, and made the rest of her family to memorize and honor his death, even though nobody knows his whereabouts. She thought that it is the best solution not to be stuck to the abductee’s whereabouts and not to fail surviving with the rest of her family. She thought it is wise to just give up waiting for or searching for him.

Q. Then, do you know where he was taken to?
“Since my father-in-law had been abducted, my husband started to suffer from a kind of PTSD, having cold sweats with very small things for example, but at that time I was not aware of the reason why he has such sensitive reaction. One day, somebody thumped on the door, and my husband shrank with fright. North Korean army aggressively entered our house so frequently and took what they needed away. Also, when the Communist Chinese Army joined the Korean War and made a raid into South, he was very afraid of being drafted to the North Korean Army, that’s why he was hypersensitive to banging sounds and unexpected situations. He really didn’t want to be taken away just like his father was.


News after the Abduction


Q. You’ve never heard of him since he was abducted?
No news at all. What I regret the most is that we don’t know what happened to him at all. We just want to know whether he is alive or dead, and if he is dead, when and how he died. But it’s not allowed at all. My mother-in-law is already passed away, and as far as I know, she didn’t have any idea about her husband’s whereabouts.

Q. No information about the abductee’s friends whom were playing Baduk with?
Of course there’s not a single information about them. And I don’t even clearly remember who they were. My mother-in-law and my husband would have clearly known who they were, but they both have passed away years ago.