Alleged N. Korean spy arrested: NIS report

An alleged North Korean spy was arrested early this month while trying to enter South Korea with a forged passport from a Southeast Asian country, the country's state intelligence agency said Monday.

In a report to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it arrested a 48-year-old North Korean spy, Jeong Gyeong-hak, late last month for trying to enter the country with a forged Philippine passport, according to members of the parliamentary committee.

The alleged spy had visited the country at least three times between early 1996 and 1998 and re-entered the country on July 27, according to the committee members, who were speaking on condition of anonymity.

He was arrested in his hotel room on July 31, only few days before he was to leave the country, they said.

The alleged North Korean is suspected of taking pictures of the country's key military and government installations during his previous visits, intelligence officials were quoted as telling the Assembly committee.

The committee legislators said Jeong's visits to the military and government installations may have also been aimed at checking their coordinates for precise strikes in case of war.

At least eight North and South Koreans spying for the communist North have been exposed since the incumbent government was inaugurated in early 2003, and this is the first time for an alleged North Korean spy to be caught while trying to enter the country, according to sources.

Intelligence officials believe Jeong is a member of an espionage arm of the North's Workers' Party, widely known as the 35th Division, according to the committee members.

The prosecution was expected to indict him on charges of violating the National Security Law, including attempted espionage and infiltration, according to sources close to the case.

North and South Korea remain divided along a heavily-fortified border that has been jointly controlled by the countries and the United Nations Command since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Some 600,000 South Korean and U.S. forces stationed here are still technically in a state of war with over 1.1 million troops on the other side of the inter-Korean border, as the Korean War ended only with an armistice treaty.

Seoul, Aug. 21 (Yonhap News)