SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - SOUTH Korean investigators on Friday disputed North Korea's claim that a Seoul tourist was shot dead after she ignored an order to stop and tried to run away.

They said a North Korean soldier might have fired from a distance of 100 metres or less when housewife Park Wang Ja was killed July 11 at the North's Mount Kumgang resort.

'A simulation test showed she was presumed to be walking slowly or standing still when she was shot', Mr Kim Dong Hwan, a member of the South's joint investigation team, told reporters.

It said she fled when challenged and did not stop even when a soldier discharged warning shots.

But witnesses have said they did not hear warning shots, and others have queried the distance the woman was supposed to have walked. Photos show no warnings on a nearby fence.

Local media and officials have cast doubt on the times and other details in the account that the North first provided after the shooting.

The soldier is believed to have shot three times, Mr Kim said, adding that his team did not have sufficent data to prove when the shooting took place.

The North has expressed regret at the death but has blamed the South for the incident and refuses to let it send an official investigation team.

The killing has further soured relations. The South has halted the Kumgang tours, which earn the impoverished North tens of millions of dollars a year.

The North had previously cut official ties to the South in protest at President Lee Myung Bak's earlier tougher line on cross-border relations.