SEOUL - NORTH Korea has denied reports that a group of its citizens may have been executed after they were found drifting in South Korean waters and sent home.

In a statement on late Thursday, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland also denied allegations that rice aid from South Korea had beeen diverted to the North's military.

'These... smear campaigns by the South's ultra-rightists are nothing but preposterous and groundless fabrications,' said the committee, a state body in charge of civilian exchanges with the South.

South Korean intelligence officials said they were sent home at their own request after apparently drifting accidentally across the border.

But Yonhap news agency quoted rumours that the 14 women and eight men might have been executed after their repatriation.

'Our people, who drifted due to high seas, were captured by South Korean patrol boats. They flatly rejected enticement that they would be guaranteed a wealthy livelihood if they defected to the South, and returned to the bosom of the fatherland and now live normal lives in their homes,' the committee said.

Its statement was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The committee also denied recent South Korean reports quoting witnesses as saying rice aid from the South had been diverted to the military.

'The so-called suspected diversion of food aid to the military has never happened, nor should happen. This is a sheer fabrication,' it said.

Since the December presidential election won by the conservative Grand National Party candidate, 'ultra-rightists in the South' have been persisting in their plot to wreck improving inter-Korean ties, the committee said.

'This reveals their anti-unification nature. We cannot but seriously worry over the future of North-South relations,' it added.

'We are closely watching developments in the South and there will come a time when we settle the score,' it warned, without elaborating.

Since the election, the North's media has not commented directly on the winner Lee Myung Bak, who takes office on Monday.

Mr Lee has promised a firmer line in relations including raising human rights issues, but has offered the North a massive aid programme if it becomes fully nuclear-free. -- AFP

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