More charges in South Korea's seductress-spy case

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean prosecutors on Thursday charged a North Korean defector with violating national security laws by aiding his stepdaughter, who was indicted last week with spying for the North in a sex-for-secrets scandal.

Won Jeong-hwa, a 34-year-old woman who posed as a defector, is suspected of sleeping with South Korean military officers in exchange for classified information.

Won's stepfather, Kim Dong-sun, also arrested last week, is suspected of helping finance Won's activities, prosecutors told reporters.

Lawyers for Kim could not be reached immediately for comment.

The spy case comes as ties between the Koreas have chilled after President Lee Myung-bak took office in February and angered the North by saying Seoul would stop what once had been a free flow of aid and tie handouts to progress the North makes in nuclear disarmament.

Won, who arrived in South Korea in 2001, is suspected of obtaining information on weapons systems, the areas of key military facilities and even the email addresses of top officers and then passing the information to North Korea.

North Korea in an official media dispatch late on Wednesday denounced Won and her stepfather for leaving the country. It also lambasted South Korea, saying the charges against Won were "a threadbare charade".

"(Won is) human scum crazy for money, vanity and swindling," its KCNA news agency quoted an official with the communist state as saying. The official continued: "As for her step-father ... he is also human scum who betrayed the homeland and the people."

Won is expected to go on trial next week, court officials said.

About 14,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the 1950-1953 Korean War, with most of them coming in the past 10 years. Spy cases were commonplace for several decades after the war but have become rare in recent years.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun)