Seoul:
Pyongyang announced Friday that it broke diplomatic ties with Malaysia following that nation extradited a North Korean citizen to the United States, in a foreign ministry statement carried on state news wire KCNA.
On March 17, Malaysian authorities “committed an unpardonable crime… of forcibly delivering the innocent citizen (of North Korea) to the United States,” the statement study.
North Korea’s foreign ministry “hereby announces total severance of the diplomatic relations with Malaysia,” the statement added, slamming what it known as a “hostile act” committed against Pyongyang “in subservience to the US pressure.”
The statement described the unnamed person as an individual engaged in “legitimate external trade activities in Singapore,” insisting that it was a “fabrication… to argue that he was involved in ‘illegal money laundering.'”
On March 3, a North Korean man named Mun Chol Myong lost his final appeal in Malaysia’s leading court against extradition to the United States to face funds laundering charges.
Mun, who had lived in the Southeast Asian nation for a decade with his loved ones, was arrested in 2019 following the extradition request from Washington.
In court he denied FBI claims that he led a criminal group that violated sanctions by supplying prohibited products to North Korea and laundered funds by means of front businesses.
He faces 4 charges of funds laundering and two of conspiracy to launder funds. The allegations relate primarily to his work in Singapore, according to his lawyers.
It is unclear what Mun is accused of supplying, but there have been circumstances of firms in Singapore sending luxury products, such as liquor and watches, to North Korea.
The export to North Korea of some luxury goods has been banned as portion of sweeping sanctions imposed on Pyongyang by the United Nations and other nations — like the United States — more than its weapons programmes.
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