Defector Claims North Korea Has 5 Nuclear Bombs : Asia: U.S. doubts remarks by man identified as premier’s son-in-law.

A defector identified as the son-in-law of North Korea’s prime minister declared Wednesday that Pyongyang has already built five nuclear bombs.

At a news conference in Seoul, Kang Myong Do said the security chief at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, told him that North Korea intends to announce its development of nuclear weapons after building five more. He added that assembly-line production of missiles to carry the warheads is expected in 1995.

Kang offered no documentation for his claims, and the U.S. State Department cast doubt on their reliability.

Nonetheless, his statement marked the first time that any defector from North Korea has charged that the Stalinist nation has already constructed nuclear bombs. The remarks also came from one of the most elite North Koreans ever to defect--a member of the Kim family clan that dominates the ruling group.

Kang, 35, is married to the only daughter of North Korean Prime Minister Kang Song San. He defected in May and was subjected to two months of detention and interrogation by South Korea’s Agency for National Security Planning.

Wednesday’s news conference, which was tainted with obvious South Korean propaganda, was staged by the intelligence agency. It was timed to coincide with the 41st anniversary of the armistice ending the 1950-53 Korean War--a day that North Korea celebrates as “Victory Day” commemorating the “defeat” of American “aggressors.”

North Korea early today angrily denounced South Korea for putting a “criminal” defector on show in Seoul and flatly denied Kang is related to the North’s prime minister.

The official Korean Central News Agency accused the South of jeopardizing reconciliation of the two Koreas and of brainwashing Kang to report that the North has developed five nuclear bombs.

In Pyongyang, both Prime Minister Kang and Kim Jong Il, the country’s new leader, failed to attend the Victory Day celebration, a major Communist event.

Their absence, combined with the younger Kang’s declarations, raised new questions about what is happening in North Korea, where President Kim Il Sung, 82, died of a heart attack July 8.

The Victory Day commemoration was the second occasion since his father’s death that Kim Jong Il, who has never been known to give a speech, failed to use a natural opportunity to deliver an address. A speech was read on his behalf.

At his news conference in Seoul, Kang said he was told that North Korea has not yet admitted it has built the bombs because it fears “the international community would impose sanctions upon us and we would not be able to build any more.”

He said the bombs are being built to provide defense against threats from the outside.

Negotiations between the United States and North Korea over the nuclear issue are scheduled to resume Aug. 5.

Defense Agency officials in Tokyo noted that neither the United States nor Japan believes North Korea possesses enough plutonium to build five bombs. The CIA estimates that it has enough plutonium to have built only one or two.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said Kang’s statements “are not consistent with information within our own intelligence community.”

Kang, vice president of a trading company run by the North Korean president’s office, is a distant relative of Kim Il Sung on his father’s side. His father-in-law, the North Korean prime minister, is a cousin of the late dictator.

To establish his identity, Kang provided South Korean intelligence officials with family photos of himself with his wife--whom he left behind in the North--and the prime minister. He also had a passport and other official documents.

Reporters were shown a photograph of Kang and his wife flanking Prime Minister Kang, 63, who was most recently ranked No. 3 in the North Korean hierarchy.

Kang said he sought asylum when he suspected that his position with the trading firm had become threatened.