North Korea Says It Has Arrested a South Korean Spy SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said on Thursday that it had arrested a spy sent by the intelligence agency of its rival, South Korea. The North's intelligence authority recently apprehended the spy in Pyongyang, a spokesman for the Ministry of State Security of North Korea told the country's official Korean Central News Agency. The agent confessed that he had come from South Korea and had been operating in a "third country" for six years, wearing "the mask of religion," to spy on and plot against North Korea, the spokesman said. "He infiltrated all the way into our capital, Pyongyang, to rally unhealthy elements with the purpose of destroying our society and system and stability," the unidentified spokesman was quoted as saying. It shows how far the conservative puppet clique in the South is taking its racket against our republic. He said the investigation was continuing but gave no further details. South Korean intelligence officials quickly called the North Korean claim groundless and preposterous. North Korea has often asserted that South Korean Christian activists working in China to help refugees from the North are spies controlled by the South Korean intelligence agency. Some of these activists help smuggle refugees out of North Korea and send Bibles and other Christian messages, as well as aid, into the impoverished country - acts that Pyongyang considers hostile. North Korea has been holding Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary, on charges of "hostile acts" since last November. Mr. Bae was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in May. Last month, North Korea repatriated six South Koreans who had fled to the North in recent years to escape bankruptcies and family troubles in the South. The gesture was unusual because the North had in the past welcomed defectors from the South and used them for propaganda.