A former Pyongyang spy told a Diet panel Thursday that 15 abducted Japanese were alive in North Korea between 1988 and 1991 and suggested one of the five repatriated in 2002 has information about many of those still missing.

An Myong Jin, who defected to the South in 1993, told the panel, "I have firsthand information, including what I saw myself, that 15 Japanese were alive in North Korea."

An cited his own encounters with 11 of the 15 abductees in question between October 1988 and early 1991 at what is now Kim Jong Il Political and Military University, from which he graduated.