Kim Dong-shik

Kim Dong-shik (, 1947 – disappeared January 16, 2000) was a Korean-American Protestant minister who went missing in China in January 2000. His missionary and humanitarian work in China had involved aiding North Korean defectors there, and evidence eventually emerged that the North Korean regime was responsible for his disappearance. In 2015, a U.S. federal court awarded damages to his family after determining that Kim had likely died in a North Korean prison camp after being abducted from China by North Korean operatives who regarded Kim's activities as a threat to the regime.

Background Kim was born in South Korea in 1947. He moved to Chicago, Illinois as a young man, becoming a permanent resident of the United States. He served as minister of the Chicago Evangelical Holiness Church. Although Kim's family suspected North Korean involvement in his disappearance, little solid evidence about his fate emerged until 2004, when a North Korean defector to South Korea told authorities he had seen Kim in a cell at the Ministry of State Security office in Hoeryong – a North Korean town across the border from Yanji – shortly after his abduction. In 2005, a Chinese national of Korean descent confessed in a South Korean court that he had aided North Korean agents to abduct Kim and transport him across the border to North Korea.

Lawsuit In 2009, Kim's son and younger brother, both U.S. citizens, brought a lawsuit against North Korea in a U.S. federal court, seeking damages for Kim's torture and murder. Although the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) usually protects foreign governments from being sued in U.S. courts, an exception exists for countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, including North Korea. North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit, which was initially dismissed by the court for lack of first-hand evidence that Kim had been tortured and killed by the North Korean regime. However, in December 2014, an appeals court overturned the dismissal, stating that evidence of North Korea's involvement in Kim's abduction, together with testimony from expert witnesses about widespread torture in North Korean prison camps, were sufficient for the family to seek damages. The Times of Israel reported that "North Korea is not expected to pay the damages, but lawyers will seek the confiscation of North Korean assets such as bank accounts and company shares."