S. Korea plotted against N.K. leader: N.K. spokesman

SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Thursday that it has arrested a person who tried to conduct a terrorist mission against its leader, Kim Jong-il, under orders from the South Korean intelligence agency.

In a statement, a spokesman for North Korea's State Security Ministry said that
recently, a person with the surname Ri was arrested while carrying out a
"terrorist mission given by a south Korean puppet intelligence-gathering
organization to do harm to the safety of the top leader of the DPRK."
DPRK is the abbreviation for the North's official name, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
The statement carried by the (North) Korean Central News Agency added that Ri
crossed the inter-Korean border in violation of the law early this year, and was
intercepted by a South Korean intelligence agent surnamed Hwang.
The South's National Intelligence Service sent him back to the North after
training him to gather information about the course and period of Kim Jong-il's
field guidance visits, it said.
"The organization also sent him speech and acoustic sensing and pursuit devices
for tracking the movement of the top leader," said the statement.
The spokesman gave the Lee Myung-bak government's "anti-North Korean moves" that
have reached "an extremely reckless and dangerous phase" as its reason for
issuing the statement.
The statement came amid completely frozen inter-Korean relations following the
launch of the conservative government in the South and the death of a South
Korean tourist shot by North Korean soldiers near the North's Mount Kumgang in
July.
The North recently suspended inter-Korean tours to its attractions and expelled
hundreds of South Koreans in the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North
Korean border town of Kaesong, citing the Lee government's "tough" stance against
it.
(END)