US court orders North Korea to pay $400m over USS Pueblo seizure

Can the United States recover the honor lost in one of the most humiliating episodes in its military history through a court-ordered damages award?

US authorities have delivered to North Korea a court ruling ordering Pyongyang to pay $400 million in compensation to the crew of the USS Pueblo and their families, Voice of America reported Friday (local time).

The Department of State said in a filing submitted to a federal court in Washington on Tuesday that it had delivered the relevant court documents to North Korea's UN mission in New York on Aug. 8.

The documents, made public Tuesday at the Washington federal court, include court orders and opinions, the judgment, and a notice of judgment.

The USS Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence-gathering vessel, was seized by North Korea on Jan. 23, 1968, while operating in Donghae.

One crew member was killed during the capture, and the remaining 82 were taken prisoner and held for 11 months before being released on Dec. 23 of that year.

The Pueblo incident marked the first time a US warship had been seized by a foreign power and remains one of the most notorious humiliations in American military history. The vessel is still on display at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum along the Botong River in Pyongyang.

North Korean authorities have treated the warship as a war trophy, using it domestically as anti-American propaganda to claim that even the United States can be defeated.

Pueblo crew members have filed multiple damages suits against North Korea in US courts. The most recent — the third major lawsuit of its kind — involved 15 surviving crew members along with 119 family members and heirs.

The plaintiffs said they suffered abuse and torture during their captivity and continued to experience psychological trauma after returning home, and called for compensation from North Korea.

The Washington federal court found North Korea liable and ordered it to pay $400 million in damages.

Earlier, a US court had ordered approximately $97 million in damages in a 2008 suit brought by four Pueblo crew members. In 2021, a court ordered North Korea to pay approximately $2.31 billion in a suit filed by 171 crew members and family members.

The central question is whether North Korea will actually pay.

If it does, the precedent could theoretically allow crew members and soldiers from nearly every country whose warships have been seized in past conflicts to seek damages from the responsible state.

Many observers consider it unlikely that North Korea will pay the damages in practice.

However, analysts say the formal delivery of the court ruling to North Korea could accelerate relief for the plaintiffs.

VOA noted that the victims may apply for government compensation through the Justice Department's Terrorism Victims Fund, which is financed in part with assets seized from sanctions violations.

It also said enforcement proceedings are possible — tracking and seizing frozen North Korean assets held at financial institutions around the world and recovering them as compensation.

Separately, families of Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine have also filed suit against North Korea.

The plaintiffs named North Korea as a defendant alongside Russia and Iran.

The complaint reportedly argues that North Korea bears direct responsibility for the deaths of Ukrainian soldiers because North Korean-made weapons were used in the conflict.

The complaint and related notices were delivered to Russia's Foreign Ministry through the US Embassy in Moscow on Sept. 4, and the Department of State notified the US court of the delivery on Sept. 9, VOA reported.

It has not been confirmed whether the relevant documents have been delivered to North Korea.

VOA said it expects the Department of State to deliver the documents to North Korea's UN mission in New York, as it did with the Pueblo-related materials.