A researcher at a Ganggye microbiology research facility has fled North Korea with 15GB of data relating to human experimentation, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency has reported.

The biochemical weapons expert, identified only by his surname “Lee”, has allegedly defected to Finland, and will present his evidence on human experimentation to the European parliament later in July.

“His ostensible reason for defection is that he felt sceptical about his research,” a source from a North Korean human rights group told Yonhap. The source claimed that Lee had left the country on 6 June via the Philippines.

Speaking to Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Greg Scarlatoiu, stated that the claims from Lee sounded plausible.

“We have been told similar stories in the past, that human experiments are carried out in prison camps,” Scarlatoiu said, adding that any evidence would likely include the testing of chemical weapons on human subjects.

Scarlatoiu’s comments tally with an interview given last year by a former officer in North Korea’s special forces.

Im Cheon-Yong, who defected in the 1990s, claimed his exit was triggered by experimentation on disabled children and adults.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said: “The regime wants to do this ‘legally’, so they offer to buy disabled children from their parents and they say they will take care of them. If that doesn’t work, they threaten them. They use them for chemical weapons experiments.”

At the time of writing, neither Finland’s Ministry of the Interior nor the Finnish Immigration Service have been able to corroborate the defection reports.

The country’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs was unable to confirm whether Lee had entered the country, and declined to comment on Lee’s reported plans to reveal evidence to the European parliament.

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