A North Korean soldier who was shot by his own colleagues as he fled has said most people of his age in the hermit nation have no loyalty to Kim Jong-un.
Oh Chong Song, the son of a military general, made international headlines after his daring escape was caught on South Korean CCTV last year.
He was shot five times at close range after driving through a number of military checkpoints, crashing into a ditch and attempting to run across on foot.
Oh, 25, said that despite being in a privileged military family and describing himself as upper class he felt no allegiance to the Kim family.
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Inside the North, people, and especially the younger generation, are indifferent to each other, politics, and their leaders, and there is no sense of loyalty, Japans Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported he said.
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He added: Probably 80 per cent of my generation is indifferent and has no loyalty.
It is natural to have no interest nor loyalty since the hereditary system is taken as a given, regardless of its inability to feed people.
When pressed about the reason he felt he needed to leave the North so quickly, Oh denied reports that he was wanted for murder.
He said that after getting into some trouble with friends, which he refused to elaborate on, he started drinking.
On his way back to his post he broke through a checkpoint and, fearing execution, decided to keep going.
I feared I could be executed if I went back so I crossed the border, he said, adding he had no regrets about defecting.
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Oh had chosen the most difficult route to leave through, the Panmunjom truce village in the Demilitarised Zone, which is the most heavily armed area on the planet.
North Korean troops are permanently stationed in the area, but it is extremely rare for them to even attempt to defect from there.
He has since said that he is a new person with a new name, and that his first memory after waking up from surgery was seeing the South Korean flag.
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He added that he understood why the other soldiers, who were his friends, shot at him that day and said: If they dont shoot, they will be severely punished. If I were in their position I would have shot me too.
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