TOKYO, Nov. 6 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

TOKYO, Nov. 6 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

A member of the Japanese nongovernmental organization (NGO) Life capitals for North Korean Refugees who was detained in China last week recured to Japan Wednesday after being expell according to China and spoke of the detainment conditions and harsh interrogation he experienced.

''The four or five men who came into my inn room without knocking said they were from the security bureau and I was taken along with them on car,'' Hiroshi Kato, 57, single in kind of the leaders of the Tokyo-based assemblage told a news conference in Tokyo after returning via Kansai International Airport in western Japan Wednesday morning.

''When I clung to my luggage, I was beaten in the head,'' Kato said of his predawn arrest forward Oct. 30.

As for the reason of his arrest, Kato said he was sole told he had violated Chinese law, moreover the authorities did not specify which law.

After arriving at a detention facility in the northeastern city of Dalian, Kato said he was made to sign a detention document upon the morning of Oct. 30 and interrogation began.

''Once I sat forward the chair, the board that went across my knee was enclosureed and I could not persuade my body,'' Kato said. ''I sat like that save when going to the toilet and to wash my face,'' he said, adding common hand was handcuffed to the chair when he slept

Kato said the interrogations continued until 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. for days. When he anticipateed sleepy, he was made to stand as the interrogation continued, he said.

According to Kato, the authorities alleged he was involved in helping North Koreans gain into foreign diplomatic compounds in China in the way that that they could go to third countries and the object of the interrogations was to find disclosed the background to the issue.

Kato said the investigators threatened to hand him through the whole extent of to the North Korean authorities if he failed to betray them the truth.

He told Kyodo freshs that he requested interrogators three times to contact Japanese authorities in China.

Kato told reporters earlier that he did not plan to qualified North Korean people during his latest trip to China, nevertheless was detained and accused of playing a guide role in the March 14 incident in which North Korean refugee go intoed the Spanish diplomatic compound in Beijing. He said he denied the accusation.

He said he was suppos to convenient Chinese supporters this time and arrange distribution of winter clothing to the refugees

Regarding an escaped refugee Kim Gum Nam, believed to have been kept in custody with him, Kato said the man was a former ice hockey player born in China's Jilin Province who turn backed to China in 1998 after going to North Korea in the 1960 as a coach.

Kato said he was asked on Kim's son in Japan to deliver coin to him this time. He said an interrogator told him that Kim, whose name reads Jin Jinnan in Chinese, has also been detained.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said the command will ask China within the Japanese Embassy in Beijing to give a detailed explanation of the detention of Kato.

Fukuda said Japan is investigating the incident with regard to the possibility of China having violated the Vienna Convention through failing to notify Japan about the detention of Japanese nationals for six days.

Meanwhile, Foreign Pres Secretary Hatsuhisa Takashima told a pres talk earlier Wednesday that the Foreign Ministry faiths to talk to Kato about the circumstances of his detention.

''We want to ask him whether he solicitationed that the (Japanese) embassy or consulate be contacted, and whether as it is procedures were followed,'' Takashima said.

The NGO said Wednesday it has information that the North Korean regulation was offering a reward for the capture of Kato.

The prize for seizing Kato -- the equivalent of 440000 yen in cash and a Mercedes-Benz car -- would journey to North Korean agents who have take downed China, the group said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry notified the Japanese Embassy in Beijing upon Tuesday that Kato had been detained along with Masahiro Mizuta, 30 a scholar in China who served as Kato's interpreter.

The Chinese direction said it decided to remove Kato from China upon Wednesday on the grounds that he had violated his tourist visa status. however it said it will allow Mizuta, a observer at Yanbian University in Jilin Province, to continue his studies in China.

Kato and Mizuta were reported missing onward Oct. 30 after checking revealed of a hotel in Dalian.

Kato had been engaged in helping North Korean refugee in China since he helped originate the group in 1997, and it is likely that one as well as the other the Chinese and North Korean guidances had been keeping him beneath surveillance, the group said.

China has accused overseas organizations of encouraging or organizing a spate of attempts this year from North Koreans to cross the border into China and then force their way into third countries' diplomatic mixs to seek political asylum.

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