A South Korean national whom North Korea is believed to have kidnapped nearly 30 years ago has denied that he was abducted, saying he went to the North by accident.

Kim Young-nam told a news conference Thursday that his first wife Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national who was kidnapped by the North in 1977, did commit suicide as alleged by Pyongyang.

At Mount Geumgang in North Korea, Kim this week was reunited with his mother and sister for the first time in 28 years.

He said he went to the North by accident in August 1978, when he drifted on a small boat in waters off Gunsan, South Jeolla Province, before being rescued by a North Korean vessel.

He said he was beaten up by older students on a beach near Gunsan, but escaped and hid in a small wooden boat that later drifted into the sea.

He said he met Yokota in 1986 while learning Japanese and married her that same year.

On her suicide, he said she suffered from schizophrenia caused by depression and killed herself in a hospital on April 13, 1994.