South Korean police will seek the deportation of a former captain of a hijacked ship - whose crew is missing presumed murdered by pirates - jailed in Hong Kong on alien smuggling charges.
They will apply for Kim Tae-kuk, 45, to be repatriated after serving his sentence, which is expected to end in August, said reports from Seoul.
The Yonhap News Agency said South Korean Maritime Police, who are investigating the disappearance of the 15-member crew, including two Korean officers and an aluminium ingot cargo, wanted to interview Kim, who recruited the missing men.
The Sunday Morning Post revealed Kim was behind bars in the SAR. An international outcry is building over China's apparent release without charge of two Indonesian pirates who hijacked a bulk carrier in 1995 and then were arrested aboard the Tenyu.
The cargo carrier was found in late December at the Chinese port of Zhangjiagang, near Shanghai, repainted and renamed as the Sanei-1 and missing its Korean government-owned load of aluminium worth HK$15 million. It had left an Indonesian port on September 27.
Kim is serving a 21-month sentence for using forged Korean passports to smuggle two mainlanders through Hong Kong to Japan in June last year.