text: N. Korea urges S. Korea to return war veteran . SEOUL 1996-08-31 North Korea demanded on Saturday that South Korea return a northern war veteran who has been in the South since the 1950-53 war , Seoul 's unification ministry said . " ...I request the immediate repatriation of Kim In-so to North Korea where his family is waiting , " North Korean Red Cross president Li Song-ho said in a telephone message to his southern couterpart , Kang Young-hoon . Li said Kim had been critically ill with a cerebral haemorrhage . The message was distributed to the press by the South Korean unification ministry . Kim , an unrepentant communist , was captured during the Korean War and released after spending more than 30 years in a southern jail . He submitted a petition to the International Red Cross in 1993 asking for his repatriation . The domestic Yonhap news agency said the South Korean government would consider the northern demand only if the North accepted Seoul 's requests , which include regular reunions of families split by the Korean War . Government officials were not available to comment . South Korea in 1993 unconditionally repatriated Li In-mo , a nothern partisan seized by the South during the war and jailed for more than three decades .