BBC says North Korea detains and expels reporter

Seoul: A BBC reporter in North Korea was detained and ordered expelled from the country over his reporting in the run-up to a rare ruling party congress, the British broadcaster said Monday.

The reporter, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, was detained on Friday at Pyongyang airport as he was leaving the country with two other BBC staff, the BBC said on its website.

He was then questioned alone for eight hours, it added.

"The team have now been taken to the airport," it said.

China`s official Xinhua news agency, which has a bureau in Pyongyang, said the North`s National Peace Committee had held a press conference Monday saying Wingfield-Hayes had been expelled for "attacking the DPRK system and non-objective reporting."

The DPRK is North Korea`s official acronym.

The three-person BBC team was in North Korea ahead of the party congress that began Friday, accompanying a delegation of Nobel prize laureates conducting a research trip.