Hostel at North Korean embassy in Berlin closed for good

BERLIN — A hostel on the grounds of the North Korean embassy in Berlin accused of helping finance the East Asian country in violation of international sanctions has been closed, a city official said Friday.

Stephan von Dassel, the head of the central district that is home to the embassy and neighbouring City Hostel Berlin, told the dpa news agency that an administrative court had rejected its final appeal against closure.

The hostel was said to have been a significant source of foreign income for North Korea — estimated at one point by city officials to have been 38,000 euros ($42,000) per month — in breach of U.N. Security Council sanctions and European Union regulations intended to stop the flow of hard currency to the country.

The hostel’s operators claimed they stopped paying rent to the embassy in April 2017, but in January the administrative court rejected their bid to stop the closure, noting that an EU directive forbids any use of North Korean territory other than for diplomatic or consular purposes.

The appeal of that decision was rejected Thursday, von Dassel said.

“For us, the legal case is closed,” he said.

The Associated Press