The former ANU student arrested and then kicked out of North Korea last year has told of his ordeal at the hands of the regime's security police.
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Alek Sigley was finally released after signing an apology for his behaviour.
But he said little at the time apart from thanking the Australian and Swedish governments who negotiated his return to freedom.
Now for the first time, he's talked about what happened and how it changed his view of the country often described as having the most repressive government in the world.
In an article in Korean for a South Korean academic journal, he says his apology was false.
He had been a student in North Korea, separated from Korean students but enjoying a lot more freedom of movement than heavily-controlled western tourists get. He tweeted happily about his experience in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
He says the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, was his second home after Australia.
Then, he says, on June 25, 2019 "the turning point of my life suddenly came upon me".
He says he was "kidnapped" by the North Korean security police.
He says he suffered "nine days of investigation at an interrogation facility run by an organisation presumed to be the national security agency, part of the secret police".
"From my point of view, I was not guilty but I was being wrongly accused by the authorities.
"They relentlessly made me write a letter of apology as if they wanted to teach me a lesson.
"By forcing me to write a letter of apology, based on false evidence and illogical legal reasoning, they may have succeeded in teaching me a lesson.
"It is about the falsehood of the North Korean legal system."
He signed the letter because he felt completely alone in the interrogation room and frightened in front of the interrogators.
"When I was in there, I didn't know when I would come out. I was completely cut off from the outside world."
But then, he says, something changed. He didn't know it at the time but "the Prime Minister of Australia was mentioning my name in parliament.
"Afterwards due to the intervention of the Swedish foreign ministry, I was released on July 4, nine days after it became international news."
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When Mr Sigley was released there was a lot of speculation about why he had been arrested.
The former detainee doesn't address any of this but the tone of his article is nuanced. He still clearly likes North Korea and its people but condemns the regime.
He remains fascinated by the isolated country: "I hope to open the window of North Korea that had been closely shut".
It seems he may have been naive in not understanding the place and its police state mentality. Before his arrest, he wrote articles in South Korean publications, something no other Western visitor has been allowed to do except with the toughest censorship and control.
North and South Korea have never formally declared peace, even 70 years after the Korean civil war. Both countries remain heavily armed, with fearsome weaponry targeted at each other.
It's not clear where Mr Sigley now is. Initially, he fled to Tokyo to join his Japanese wife.
At the time, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said, "My advice would be pretty clear: I would stay in Japan. I would go back to South Korea."
"All of those would have to be better options before he returns to North Korea. I don't think he will put himself back in that situation. It could have ended up very differently."