N. Korea says arrests defector who worked as S.Korea agent

PYONGYANG – North Korea on Friday paraded a defector accused of involvement in a child abduction plot masterminded by South Korean agents.

In a carefully stage-managed press conference in Pyongyang, Ko Hyon-Chol, 53, “confessed” to attempting to kidnap two North Korean girl orphans and bring them to the South.

“I committed the unpardonable crime of being involved in attempted child abduction,” a weeping Ko told the press conference attended by foreign media and diplomats.

Ko fled North Korea in January 2013 and lived in China for about a year before arriving in the South in 2014 via Laos and Thailand.