The military says the North Korean serviceman who defected to South Korea on Monday had spent the night near a South Korean guard post before being discovered.
    
A military official told reporters Tuesday that the North Korean soldier passed through the Demilitarized Zone on Sunday night, waiting near a South Korean guard post until daybreak.
    
The official added that a South Korean soldier discovered the defector after hearing noises near the border.
    
Afterwards, the escapee was led in to the guard post and expressed his willingness to defect to the South.
    
Some critics have said that the military’s nighttime vigilance might have been slack, noting that the North Korean soldier had been just four meters away from the post.
    
In response, the military explained that the field of vision had been greatly restricted by thick fog and shrubbery.
    
This marks the first defection by a North Korean soldier via the DMZ since October 2012 when a North Korean serviceman crossed the eastern front of the inter-Korean border into the South.