North Korea has released a Japanese national who had been detained since 2003 on drug smuggling charges.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Yoshiaki Sawada, a former department director of Japan's Enterprise Company, was sent back to Japan on Tuesday.

The report said the North decided to release Sawada as a humanitarian measure after, according to the KCNA, the Japanese national admitted his crime and relations with those forces behind an operation to smuggle drugs and made a sincere apology for his wrongdoing.

According to Pyongyang, Sawada attempted to smuggle drugs into Japan in 2003 using a North Korean ship after acquiring the drugs from a third country.