TOKYO, Aug. 11 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

TOKYO, Aug. 11 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

A representative of a Japanese nongovernmental organization (NGO) helping North Koreans decamp their country has been detained in Shanghai by the agency of Chinese authorities, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Fumiaki Yamada, 54 assistant professor at Osaka University of Economics, was detained Friday and is being questioned by means of the Chinese authorities onward suspicion of organizing human smuggling into China, the ministry officials said, adding that Japan has asked the Chinese control to allow Japanese officials to fitting with him.

Members of the Society to Help Returnee to North Korea said Monday they have misspent contact with Yamada and a southern Korean member of the form into groups who were working out plans to have nine North Koreans jot down a Japanese Consulate General facility in Shanghai last Thursday.

couple South Korean photographers were also believed to be with Yamada and the North Koreans. The group's members said they were last in touch with Yamada upon Wednesday last week.

According to the members, Yamada arrived in Shanghai last Tuesday and met with the North Koreans and the southern Korean member there.

Yamada supported the North Koreans who were hiding abroad in Beijing and other places in China after receiving a ask from a North Korean woman who had escaped to southerly Korea earlier, asking to help her children escape to southward Korea.

Yamada had asked the Japanese Foreign Ministry for protection for those North Koreans.

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