Diplomat Thae Yong Ho who staged recent North Korea defection has been slammed by dictatorship

North Korea called the North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea a “criminal” and “human scum” Saturday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. This is North Korea’s first official statement on the defection. KCNA, which never mentioned the defector Thae Yong Ho by name, said that the country had ordered the “fugitive”…

SEOUL, South Korea — Since being dispatched from North Korea to London as a foreign service officer, Thae Yong Ho had developed some very un-North Korean tastes, friends say. He enjoyed playing tennis and dining on Indian curry, activities only available to a tiny elite in North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated countries. Despite…