Seoul hearing on 12 ex-North Korean waitresses suspended

All exploded in midair or crashed, according to South Korean defense officials. Some reports said they were anxious about possible reprisals against their relatives in North Korea, while critics accuse the South Korean spy agency of preventing them from attending the hearing.

The rocket, believed to be an intermediate-range Musudan missile, was launched from the secretive state’s east coast, according to an anonymous official. Earlier this month, North Korea had another missile launch failure.

Before April’s suspected launches, North Korea had never flight-tested a Musudan missile, although one was displayed during a military parade in 2010 in Pyongyang, its capital.

The same day, Japan put its military on alert for a possible North Korean ballistic missile launch, a South Korean news agency reported.

The campaign has included emotional video interviews with the women’s relatives in the North, angrily denouncing the South Korean authorities and demanding a meeting with the defectors.

The spy agency has said the move is created to shield the defectors’ identities and to protect their families who are still in North Korea.

All 12 were waitresses at a North Korean-run restaurant in China who arrived in the South in April, making headlines as the largest group defection in years.

The launches appear linked to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s order in March for nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The lower range covers the whole of South Korea and Japan, while the upper range would include U.S. military bases on Guam.

South Korea is technically at war with the North, because the 1950-53 conflict between the two countries ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 US soldiers are stationed in South Korea to deter possible aggression from North Korea.