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Shin Dong-hyuk, subject of the bestselling book "Escape from
Camp 14", is a well-known North Korean defector and gave
testimony to a U.N. inquiry that has issued a damning indictment
of the North's rights abuses.
On Sunday, Shin admitted in a post on his Facebook page to
having changed parts of his story.
"He is a swindler who had appeared with false name and career,
and no more than a parasite," Ja Song Nam, North Korea's
Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, said in a letter
seen by Reuters.
The letter was sent to the U.N General Assembly and
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the North Koreans asked that
it be regarded as an official document.
It repeated North Korea's long-held position that it does not
run political prison camps and said Shin was a "criminal who
fled after raping a minor girl who was only 13 years old".
North Korea has accused Shin of rape in the past. In an October
interview with Reuters, Shin said the accusation of sexual
assault was a fabrication that he had heard before.
Shin, who originally said he was born and raised within North
Korea's notorious Camp 14 and fled the country in 2005, now says
he was transferred to the less brutal Camp 18 in early life, and
first escaped to China in 2002.
North Korea's letter said "all the 'resolutions' on the
situation of human rights in (North Korea) forcibly adopted by
the General Assembly on the basis of such false documents are
invalid".
Paragraph 760 of the report, which details the torture of
children, cites Shin as saying he was tortured at the age of 14
and had his finger cut off for dropping a sewing machine.
In a statement on his website, "Escape from Camp 14" author
Blaine Harden said Shin now says he was tortured at the age of
20, and his finger was damaged by guards after his return from
China in 2002.
Michael Kirby, an Australian judge who headed the U.N. inquiry,
said the changes in Shin's account did not affect his
commission's findings.
"It's part of the testimony of one witness whose testimony is
referred to on one page of a 350-page report that includes the
testimony of hundreds of other people, so keep it in
proportion," he said.
(Reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Paul Tait)
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