With North Korean leader Kim furious over failed destroyer launch, 4 officials have been detained

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With North Korean leader Kim furious over failed destroyer launch, 4 officials have been detained

2025-05-26 12:34 Last Updated At：12:41

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has detained four officials who it says are responsible for the failed launch of its second naval destroyer, which outside observers say was damaged much more than the country has disclosed.

The detentions came after leader Kim Jong Un expressed fury over Wednesday's incident that he said was caused by criminal negligence. The main military committee said Friday that those responsible would be held accountable for their “unpardonable criminal act.”

Satellite imagery showed the vessel lying on its side and draped in blue covers, with parts of it submerged. North Korea says it will take about 10 days to repair the damage, but outside observers question that timeframe because they suspect the damage is much worse.

Here is what you need to know about the failed ship launch:

The official Korean Central News Agency said Friday the severity of the damage to the 5,000-ton-class destroyer was “not serious" as it canceled an earlier assessment that the bottom of the hull had been left with holes.

KCNA said the hull on the starboard side was scratched and some seawater had flowed into the stern. It said it needs 10 days to pump out the seawater, set the ship upright and fix the scratches. KCNA said Monday that the work to restore the ship's balance was being conducted as scheduled.

It's almost impossible to verify the assessment because of the extremely secretive nature of North Korea. It has a history of manipulating or covering up military-related setbacks, policy fiascoes and other mishaps, though it has periodically acknowledged some in recent years.

Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said the North Korean warship likely has flooding in its engine room located in the stern and holes in the starboard side. He said North Korea could simply set the ship upright, paint it over and claim the ship has been launched, but that repairs could take more than a year as the replacement of an engine requires cutting the hull.

According to the North Korean account, the destroyer was damaged when a transport cradle on the ship's stern detached early during a launch ceremony at the northeastern port of Chongjin.

Moon Keun-sik, a navy expert who teaches at Seoul’s Hanyang University, said North Korean workers are probably not familiar with launching a 5,000-ton-class warship, which is a few times heavier than its existing main navy ships.

Observers say North Korea tried to launch the destroyer sideways, a method it has never used for warships, although it has previously employed it with big cargo and passenger ships.

Compared with those non-military vessels, Lee sad it would be more difficult to maintain balance with the destroyer because it's equipped with heavy weapons systems. He suspected North Korean scientists and officials likely did not factor that into their plans.

The damaged ship is assessed as the same class as North Korea’s first destroyer, launched with great fanfare last month with a floating dry dock at a western shipyard. It is North Korea's biggest and most advanced warship, and Kim called its construction “a breakthrough” in modernizing North Korea’s naval forces to cope with what he calls U.S.-led security threats.

Subsequently, a failure to launch the second destroyer was an embarrassment. But by disclosing the failure, Kim could be trying to show his resolve in building greater naval forces and boosting discipline at home. He ordered officials to repair the warship before a ruling Workers’ Party meeting in late June.

KCNA said that law enforcement authorities detained Ri Hyong Son, vice director of the munitions industry department at the ruling Workers Party’s Central Committee, who said it was “greatly responsible” for the failed launch.

KCNA reported Sunday that the authorities also detained three officials at Chongjin Shipyard — the chief engineer, head of the hull construction workshop and deputy manager for administrative affairs. It earlier reported that Hong Kil Ho, manager of the Chongjin shipyard, had been summoned for questioning.

"No matter how good the state of the warship is, the fact that the accident is an unpardonable criminal act remains unchanged, and those responsible for it can never evade their responsibility for the crime,” the North's Central Military Commission said in an instruction to the investigation team on Thursday, according to KCNA.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea appeared to be using the failed launch as a chance to strengthen the ruling party's control over science and technological sectors.

Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, said that North Korea’s handling of the damaged warship could have long-term consequences for its defense science sector.

“If scientists are held severely accountable, I would say the future of North Korea’s defense science doesn’t look very bright, as it would be a sign that political responsibility is being prioritized over technical accountability,” Lee wrote on Facebook.

Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.