North Koreans win rare inheritance case

In the first ruling of its kind, a Seoul court decided Tuesday that four North Koreans and their five half-brothers and sisters in South Korea should share the assets left by their late father. The North Koreans had filed a suit against their South Korean kin in February 2009 demanding a share of the 10 billion won ($9.35 million) worth of assets left by their father Yoon Byeong-Jeon, who died in the South in 1987.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered the South Korean family to give part of the disputed real estate to the North Koreans, along with some of their inherited assets in cash.
It did not announce a figure for what was owed to the North Koreans, Yonhap news agency reported. Other groups of North Koreans have filed similar actions in South Korean courts. The South's constitution considers the entire peninsula its territory and the North's citizens automatically have citizenship in the South. But the group involved in Tuesday's ruling were the first to win their case.
Another Seoul court last year had acknowledged the blood relationship between the North Koreans and Yoon after they sent fingernail and hair clippings. The father came to the South when the 1950-53 war began, taking only his eldest daughter with him. He had four other children with his South Korean wife.
The eldest daughter later found her North Korean family with the help of an American missionary who travelled between the two countries, Yonhap reported. The family in the North sent letters of attorney, videotapes with their images and hair samples to the sister in the South via the missionary. The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their conflict ended only with an armistice. They are divided by a heavily fortified border, with unauthorised civilian exchanges banned, and tens of thousands of family members are separated.