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`An employee at the North Korean embassy in Madrid tells reporters not to take photographs on Mar. 13. (Yonhap News)

The Spanish Supreme Court of announcement on Mar. 26 that it contacted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last month after a key suspect in a raid on the North Korean Embassy in Spain fled to the US has many watching closely for further developments in the case.

The anti-North Korean group Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD, also known as Free Joseon) claimed responsibility for the embassy raid the same day and was confirmed to have also contacted the FBI.

On Mar. 28, the Spanish judiciary made public an investigation report by investigation judge Jose de la Mata that identifies Adrian Hong Chang – a Mexican national residing in the US – as the leading figure in the Feb. 22 raid on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid. The seven of 10 individuals involved in the raid whose identity had been established were found to be South Korean and US citizens, the report said. The individuals in question are being accused of illegal detention, damage, intimidation, robbery and document forgery.

According to the report, they entered the embassy at around 4:34 pm on Mar. 22, while claiming to have come to see the economic councilor. They proceeded to immobilize embassy staff with handcuffs and cables after a “violent assault” and keep them captive for several hours. The suspects were brandishing knives, metal pipes and toy guns. Describing themselves as “members of a human rights group for the freedom of North Korea,” they dragged the economic councilor to the basement and encouraged him to defect, the report said. A female embassy worker among the captives escaped out of a first-floor window and called for help; when police arrived at the embassy, Hong appeared posing as an embassy employee. The items stolen that day consisted of two computers, two hard drives and several mobile phones and portable USB devices.

The aspect of the incident that has drawn the most attention is the fact that Hong contacted the FBI in New York on Mar. 27 – five days after the incident – to provide information about the embassy raid. The daily El Pais previously reported Spain’s National Police Corps General Commissariat of Information (CGI) and National Intelligence Centre (CNI) as having ascertained CIA connections for at least two of the individuals involved. According to the report, the suspects split into small groups of four shortly after the raid and departed for Portugal. In a Mar. 26 piece, Reuters quoted a Spanish legal source as saying that the suspects were believed to have all traveled to the US and Spanish judicial authorities planned to request criminal extradition. The AP reported that international arrest warrants had been issued for at least two of the suspects.

CCD, which claimed responsibility for the North Korean embassy raid, posted a message on its homepage that afternoon stating, “This was not an attack. We responded to an urgent situation in the Madrid embassy [of North Korea].” It also insisted that it had not used weapons.

The message also said, “The organization shared certain information of enormous potential value with the FBI in the United States, under mutually agreed terms of confidentiality.”

“This information was shared voluntarily and on their request, not our own,” it continued.

“Those terms appear to have been broken,” it added, calling the leak of information to the media “a profound betrayal of trust.”

The US State Department denied any connection to the incident. In a regular briefing that day, deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino said the US government “had nothing to do” with the attack. According to foreign news outlets, the FBI did not respond to related inquiries.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]