South Korea on Friday confirmed that a man in his early 50s, who allegedly attempted to blow up a statue of a late North Korean leader, was a former defector who had settled in the South.

Photo: AFP

North Korea on Thursday presented Jon Yong-Chol at a Pyongyang press conference where he said he had been promised handsome rewards from South Korean agents if he succeeded in his mission.

At the press conference Jon claimed he had been recruited by agents after settling in the country, the state-run KCNA news agency reported, an allegation flatly denied by South Korea's National Intelligence Agency.

According to Jon he twice visited China's northeastern city of Yanji -- in March and May this year -- where he was taught by South Korean agents how to use an explosive device that could be set off by mobile phone, KCNA reported.

He was arrested last month after entering an unspecified North Korean city near the Chinese border in an attempt to familiarise himself with the site of a statue dedicated to one of the North's late leaders, he said.

A spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry confirmed Friday that Jon was a former defector, who arrived in the South in 2010, having been born in the North in 1960.

However the spokesman described the North's allegations that it was behind a plot to destroy statues as "groundless propaganda".

On Monday North Korea accused South Korea and the United States of using defectors from the North to destroy statues and monuments dedicated to its late leaders.

Pyongyang claimed South Korean intelligence authorities hired the defectors and helped them infiltrate the North, adding that the United States was actively involved in the plot to hurt the dignity of the North's leadership.

The North said an unspecified number of such "traitors" had been arrested recently for attempting to destroy statues and monuments.

More than 23,500 refugees have settled in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War. The North customarily describes defectors to the South as "human scum" who betrayed their country.

North Korea, whose personality cult surrounding its ruling family is like a state religion, has built numerous monuments for its late founding leader Kim Il-Sung who died in 1994 and his son Kim Jong-Il who died last December.

In April two giant statues of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il were unveiled in Pyongyang, just hours after the North's failed rocket launch.

The North has threatened attacks on the South's government and conservative media for perceived insults to its regime during Pyongyang's April commemoration of the centenary of Kim Il-Sung's birth.

Source: AFP