A South Korean missionary arrested in North Korea in October says he tried to establish underground churches while operating under the orders of South Korea's intelligence agency.
At a news conference staged in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim Jeong-Wook, wearing a dark suit and in apparent good health, read a statement which detailed a number of anti-government activities.
No questions were taken at the event, footage of which was broadcast on South Korean television.
Foreigners arrested in North Korea are often required to make a public "confession" which can then expedite their eventual release.
"I thought that the (North's) current regime should be brought down and acted ... under directions from the (South's) National Intelligence Service," Kim said.
"I met with North Koreans and introduced them to the NIS," he added.
When Kim was first arrested, the North simply announced that it had captured a South Korean "spy" and ignored repeated requests from Seoul to properly identify the detainee.
It later emerged that he was Kim Jeong-Wook, 50, a Baptist evangelist who for seven years had been providing shelter and food to North Koreans living in China's northeastern border city of Dandong.
Fellow activists said he had crossed the Yalu border river in October to establish the whereabouts of some North Korean refugees who had been arrested in Dandong by Chinese authorities and repatriated.
In his statement, which he read, seated alone at a small table, Kim said he had told North Koreans he met that statues to the country's ruling Kim dynasty should be smashed, and churches built in their place.
"I also vilified and insulted the North's leadership with extremely colourful language," he said.
The news conference came a week after North Korea arrested an Australian missionary, John Short, 75, after he left a Christian pamphlet in a Buddhist temple.
