Dissident reveals N Korean horrors

• Dissident talks of political prisoners beaten and worked to death

• Kim Chol-soo releases list of country's political prisoners

• North Korea estimated to hold about 200,000 political prisoners

Key quote

"I once buried a man and it was good as I ate fully that day" - Kim Chol-soo, former North Korean political prisoner

Story in full A NORTH Korean dissident yesterday spoke of the horror of life as a political prisoner in the communist dictatorship.

Kim Chol-soo, who survived the prison camp at Yodok, about 70 miles north-west of Pyongyang, said he saw a former defector beaten to death for contacting Christian representatives in China and also witnessed the deaths of many inmates due to hard labour and lack of food.

He unveiled a list of those who had been his fellow inmates among the up to 200,000 people believed still confined by the regime over their beliefs.

Mr Kim - the name is a pseudonym to protect against possible repercussions on relatives still in the North - wore a dark hat and hospital mask to hide his face while calling for more attention to human rights abuses in North Korea.

"Most people died of malnutrition and its complications," he said of his time at Yodok.

He said prisoners received just 600g of food a day, much less than daily requirements.

The list was released by Mr Kim in conjunction with the activist group Democracy Network against North Korea Gulag.

The list of inmates includes 34 North Koreans who attempted to defect and 82 others, among them a diplomat, senior bureaucrats and security officials.

The identities of the prisoners were not independently confirmed, but Mr Kim said he remembered personal details of the inmates on the list because he was in charge of supervising his fellow prisoners at the camp.

He said some inmates did not feel sad upon the death of fellow prisoners, because they could get more food rations if they buried the deceased.

"I once buried a man and it was good as I ate fully that day," Mr Kim said.

Despite widespread accusations of torture, public executions and other atrocities, North Korea claims it does not abuse human rights

A US State Department report earlier this year said that between 150,000 and 200,000 people were held in prison camps for political reasons.

Meanwhile, North Korea, which is in international talks over its nuclear weapons programme, kept up its rhetoric against the United States and its president, George Bush, describing him as a "wicked man".

"The US admonition for 'freedom' and 'democracy' is to invent pretexts for violating sovereignty of other countries and establishing its domination over the world," the North's official news agency wrote.

Mr Bush had on Sunday referred to South Korea as a "beacon of liberty that shines across the most heavily armed border in the world".