Jeon Yong-il, a former South Korean prisoner of war who had lived in North Korea over the past half-century, arrived in Seoul Wednesday after flying into Incheon International Airport from China.

Jeon is expected to return to his home town in North Gyeongsang province around mid-January, following an ongoing interrogation and debriefing on his defection from the North and his life as a POW there.

Jeon's female companion, an unidentified North Korean woman in her 60's, was also undergoing questioning. The interrogation sessions for the couple are expected to last some four weeks, until the middle of next month.

Unlike the case of ordinary defectors, Jeon will forego an acclimatization process meant to adjust him to life in the South, and he will be allowed to meet with family members during the ongoing interrogation process.