New Zealand: A 42-year-old woman suspected of murdering two children whose remains were found in suitcases in New Zealand has been arrested in South Korea, South Korean police said Thursday.
The police of the two countries indicated that the woman, who is suspected of being the mother of the two murdered children, was arrested for the murder in South Korea at the request of the New Zealand authorities.
The police added that they would be subject to extradition procedures.
Seoul police said in a statement that “on Thursday, the suspect was arrested in an apartment in Ulsan after she was monitoring her based on information about her location and footage from CCTV.”
The statement explained that “the suspect is accused by the New Zealand police of killing two of her children in the Auckland region in 2018, who were then seven and ten years old,” noting that “she travelled to South Korea after the crime and has been in hiding since that time.”
Yonhap news agency reported that the woman is a New Zealand citizen who was born in South Korea.
The children’s remains were found last month in suitcases that were among the items abandoned in Auckland and bought by a family at auction.
Tofelaw Famanuya Vailua, an Auckland police official, said there were still a number of investigations to be conducted, both in New Zealand and abroad, in this “highly difficult case”.
