"In North Korea, I was taught that our [founding] leader Kim Il-sung was a god. You were taught to put him before your own parents. You learn from early childhood to say 'Thank you, Great Leader' for everything. And if you said the wrong thing, even if it was a slip of the tongue, you'd end up in the gulag." She said that after eight years of training she was picked for the mission to blow up the Korean Air jet – a plot devised by the present leader's father, Kim Jong-il, who hoped it would scare foreigners away from the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.