The New Zealand justice ministry on Thursday requested South Korea to extradite a woman in connection with the bodies of her two children that were discovered inside suitcases in Auckland.

The woman, known to be a South Korean-born New Zealand citizen in her 40s, was arrested in the southeastern city of Ulsan in September after a global Interpol warrant had been issued for her arrest.

The ministry said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the woman had committed the crime and ordered the prosecution to ask the Seoul High Court to conduct an extradition review within two months.

The remains of two children aged 7 and 10 were discovered inside suitcases in a storage facility in Auckland on August 11. New Zealand police estimated the children’s remains had been there for three or four years.

New Zealand police then launched a manhunt after presuming the woman as the mother of the two children and the murder suspect.

The woman was said to have acquired New Zealand nationality after her immigration, and her husband was reported to have died of an undisclosed disease there.

She reportedly fled to South Korea after her alleged crimes in New Zealand and stayed in Seoul and other places before moving into an acquaintance’s apartment in Ulsan early this year. 

(Yonhap/NAN)