Pyongyang, March 25 (KCNA) -- Kim Tong Chol, a Korean-American who was arrested for committing hideous hostile acts and espionage against the DPRK, was interviewed in Pyongyang on March 25.

    Present there were home and foreign journalists, staff members from embassies of different countries and missions of international bodies here, and overseas compatriots.

    Kim Tong Chol has been under investigation after he was caught in the act of receiving a USB and documents with classified information of nuclear activities, military and internal reality of the DPRK contained from a fixed person in the Rason Economic and Trade Zone on October 2, 2015.

    Kim told reporters:

    I was born at Daebang-dong, Yongdungpho District of Seoul on August 24, 1953 and immigrated into Virginia, the U.S. at the age of nineteen.

    In 2005 I moved to Yanji of China to run a trade company, and set up and had headed a company in the Rason Economic and Trade Zone of the DPRK from August 2008.

    I have two daughters living in New York, U.S. and brothers in south Korea with my wife.

    Living in south Korea and the U.S., I was inculcated with worship and flunkeyism to the U.S., anti-Communist idea and American sense of value to the marrow of my bones and thus came to have inveterate repugnance and ill-intended hostility toward the DPRK.

    First of all, I committed a hideous crime of defiling the dignity of the supreme leadership and social system in the DPRK and engaging myself to pernicious propaganda with an aim to break the single-hearted unity of the DPRK.

    I met Pae Ho Ryol, a south Korean professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology of China, on the introduction of my American alumnus John Kim in August 2011 and since then I had got involved in the criminal acts against the DPRK.

    Steeped with the hostility towards the DPRK, I willingly agreed to his proposal for common action against the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and its social system.

    Whenever I met Pae and other south Koreans on his introduction, including correspondent Ku Ja Ryong of Dong-A Ilbo in Beijing and Professor Ri Hyon U of Seoul National University, I let out a string of abuses against the dignity of the supreme leadership and the continuity of leadership in the DPRK and its policies and social system.

    While running a company in the Rason Economic and Trade zone, I often spoke ill of the single-minded unity of the DPRK and deliberately spread illusions about the West.

    In June last year, I let loose a spate of vituperations against the political and economic management systems of the DPRK before my employees to create antipathy against it among them.

    In front of the statues of peerlessly great men, I perpetrated as rash an act as pointing a finger at the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK, crying that I would commit a "suicide by disembowelment".

    On the other hand, I tried to incite illusions about the U.S. and war-phobia among DPRK citizens.

    I also committed such heinous crime as anti-DPRK subversion aimed to "remove" the supreme leadership of the DPRK and "bring down its social system" in collusion with south Korean intelligence agents.

    Pae Ho Ryol introduced me to Ku Ja Ryong in August 2013, who presented me to Pak Ki Su, an assistant on "the policy toward the north" to the south Korean "Ministry of Unification", at a cookshop in Seoul in July 2014.

    Pak Ki Su instructed me to stage all sorts of activities to "overthrow" the system in the DPRK, saying that he, as a "government" official in charge of the policy toward the north, would finance me. And he gave me handsome money including doctor's fee for my wife.

    On 22 July, 2015, he gave me in Seoul a duty and money to get acquainted with high-ranking personnel of the DPRK and pump from them the policy-orientation of the supreme leadership and its will to implementation of policies, stableness of the power in the north and sentiments of those close to the supreme leadership.

    And I met in Seoul with Ri Hyon U to hatch a plot for "removal" of the north's supreme leadership and "collapse of social system". Ri gave me an instruction to "spy on the state of high-ranking officials and the monolithic guidance system in the north, in particular the movements of the supreme leadership in case I attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Workers' Party as a delegate of overseas compatriots", and I agreed to his request.

    I was also involved in the anti-DPRK human rights smear campaign aimed at "collapse of its social system".

    In China's Yanji in August 2013 Ku Ja Ryong asked me to offer photos showing the miserable looks of poor and hungry north Koreans. So, I gave him SD containing unpleasant scenes to be rewarded.

    Then, I contacted with religionists to undermine the DPRK from within through "donation" and "charity" with funds and goods provided by them to "remove" its supreme leadership and "bring down" its social system.

    In August 2013 I came to contact, on the introduction of Kim Chan Yong, a U.S.-resident Korean running "Donors' Group" in Rason City, with Ri Sa Ra, a Canada-resident Korean operating a noodle factory in Hunchun of China. Ri Sa Ra asked me to offer any photo showing unpleasant looks of DPRK citizens, saying she wanted to propagandize that "the north's social system is bad." So, I intentionally took an ugly picture of my cousin's brother-in-law, who resides in North Hamgyong Province, on April 30, 2015 when he was carrying in a handcart the five noodle boxes and one bag of rice offered by me, and gave it to Ri Sa Ra for reward.

    With funds of hundreds of thousands of dollars received on several occasions from a U.S.-resident Korean Ester Ju and a Canada-resident Korean Om Jae Hong, both anti-DPRK religious fanatics introduced to me by Pae Ho Ryol, I staged what is call "donation" in a bid to create illusions about religion and longing for the West.

    Kim Tong Chol confessed that he was involved in a south Korean authorities-backed plot related to the Kaesong Industrial Zone (KIZ) in late March 2015 when he flew to Seoul with the help of Pak Ki Su.

    At an instruction of the south Korean intelligence agency, he had systematically collected the party, state and military secrets of the DPRK, he noted, and went on to say:

    In late May 2015 I offered Pak Ki Su my analysis-accompanied data on a certain unit of the Korean People's Army collected on his order of spying on the details about the unit. I also met the request for acquiring a smart phone used in the DPRK to seize its function as this helps detect the movement of the supreme leadership in the DPRK, its government maintenance way, phone-call interception, citizens' living conditions, etc.

    And I offered forged anti-DPRK data to Ri Hyon U, who instructed me to gather information about such as "the supreme leadership's policy and guidelines on the people's livelihood, economic reforms, will for national reunification, monolithic ideology, political structure of power, Chinese investment in the Rason Economic and Trade Zone and troubles, enforcement of the rural sub-workteam management system and inhabitants' living conditions".

    The tasks I got from Ku Ja Ryong were to collect data on the DPRK's nuclear facilities, the details of the Rason Economic and Trade Zone, photographic data on Rajin Shipyard, especially naval warships to be built at the shipyard, and find out whereabouts of a Canada-resident Korean priest Rim Hyon Su. He gave me nickname "northeastern tiger" for safe contact with him, stressing that all the tasks should be done in detail on the principles of when, where, what and how, etc. He handed some of data collected by me over to Dong-A Ilbo and other media of south Korea so that they could use them in anti-DPRK propaganda.

    Kim Tong Chol made a heart-felt apology again, saying he admitted that all his crimes were committed in support of the U.S. and the south Korean authorities' anti-DPRK policy and on their instructions and they are unpardonable, hideous espionages and state subversion.

    Then he answered questions put by reporters.

    He elaborated on the details of his arrest, his collusion with the south Korean puppet authorities, wire-pulling of the puppet and U.S. spy agencies and his direct involvement in the KIZ-related plot cooked by the south Korean authorities.

    He noted that he had never been subject to such maltreatment as torture during the inquiries.

    At the end of the press conference, he recommended that anyone of conscience in the world should see squarely into the essence of the U.S. and south Korean authorities' anti-DPRK policy and reject such evil policy, not joining in the disgraceful action. -0-