A Tokyo court cited a statute of limitations on Wednesday in rejecting a suit filed by five people seeking North Korea's responsibility over abuses they said they suffered for decades when they were lured to the North by Pyongyang's false promise of living in the “paradise on Earth.”
The five plaintiffs, including ethnic Koreans and Japanese who had moved to the North under the 1959-1984 repatriation program and have since fled from there, filed the lawsuit in 2018 seeking 100 million yen ($900,000) each in compensation over what they said was illegal “solicitation and detainment."
