![\"Austria](\"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/files\/2010\/03\/kimjongryul2-226x312.jpg\" "\\"Austria")
He bought them cars, weapons, expensive furniture and the finest food \u2013all while their people starved.<\/p>\nHe bought them cars, weapons, expensive furniture and the finest food \u2013all while their people starved.<\/p>\n
Col. Kim Jong Ryul says he spent two decades traveling to European cities on shopping spree-missions for North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim il Sung, and then later for his son, Kim Jong Il.<\/p>\n
Helping to lift the shroud on North Korea\u2019s brutal and mysterious regime, the German-speaking Kim claims to have bought luxury cars, carpets and gold-plated handguns with cash sent from Pyongyang.\u00a0 He says Mercedes was the favorite brand of the leadership, but they also liked Lincolns and Cadillacs.\u00a0 He also obtained furnishings for the leaders’ \u00a0numerous villas, and he bought food, food, and more food.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what really got to Kim. \u201cPeople were dying of starvation,\u201d he told Fox News, \u201cand they were eating food from all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The North Koreans were also building up their stockpile of weapons, and Kim helped by buying arms, planes and spy gear.\u00a0 He got around embargoes, he says, by paying top dollar and then some to eager European businessmen.<\/p>\n
Where did impoverished North Korea get the money?<\/p>\n
\u201cFor that they didn\u2019t save,\u201d he said. \u201cAlways the money came.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the mid 1990s, angry about North Korean policies, Kim faked his death and went into hiding for 15 years in a small Austrian village.\u00a0Why did he do it? \u201cNumber one, for freedom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Now, at 75, and at great risk to himself and his family still in North Korea, he\u2019s decided to go public. Working with two Austrian journalists, who\u2019ve checked his claims, he\u2019s come out with a book entitled, \u201cIn the Service of Dictators.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Austria](\"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/files\/2010\/03\/kimjongryul31-217x240.jpg\" "\\"Austria")
<\/p>\n
His assessment of Kim Jong Il: \u201cHe is human.\u00a0 But the political ideas inside his head are of the devil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim dismisses Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear saber- rattling as \u201cpropaganda,\u201d\u00a0and he has a message for the U.S. in how to deal with the North Korean regime: \u201cDestroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim is now seeking asylum in Austria, where police are already keeping a close watch over him.\u00a0 Considering North Korea\u2019s history in dealing with dissidents, that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He bought them cars, weapons, expensive furniture and the finest food \u2013all while their people starved. Col. Kim Jong Ryul says he spent two decades traveling to European cities on shopping spree-missions for North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim il Sung, and then later for his son, Kim Jong Il. Helping to lift the shroud on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4512,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}