North Korean defector changes story

Story highlights Shin Dong-hyuk has changed "key parts of his story," the author of a book about him says Shin's accounts of his time in a North Korean prison camp have been widely reported The publisher says it's working on "an accurate understanding of the facts"

He was one of the most high-profile North Korean defectors, winning several human rights awards and inspiring a documentary as his memoir was translated into 27 languages.

Now the publisher of the book and its author say Shin -- who claims to have been born in and escaped from a North Korean prison camp -- has revealed that parts of the story he told weren't true. Shin may have spent most of his life in North Korea at a different prison camp, rather than the total control zone that formed the title of his biography.

Shin's accounts of his time in the gulag have been widely reported in interviews with media including CNN. He also wrote an opinion piece describing his experiences for CNN Digital.

Blaine Harden, author of the book "Escape from Camp 14," said in a statement on his website over the weekend that Shin had changed "key parts of his story."

"On Friday, Jan. 16, I learned that Shin Dong-hyuk, the North Korean prison camp survivor who is the subject of 'Escape from Camp 14,' had told friends an account of his life that differed substantially from my book," Harden said. "I contacted Shin, pressing him to detail the changes and explain why he had misled me."

Harden declined to provide additional details to CNN, but published a lengthy explanation on his website. A Washington Post story based on information Harden said he had provided to the newspaper said "the most horrific details" of Shin's story "still stand," but some of the times and places of the events in his accounts were wrong.

"From a human rights perspective, he was still brutally tortured, but he moved things around," Harden told the Post, where he worked as a reporter for 28 years.

Shin did not immediately respond to a request from CNN for comment. In a post on his Facebook page, he doesn't go into details about the purported discrepancies, but he includes a link to the Post's story and apologizes to his supporters.

"This particular past of mine that I so badly wanted to cover up can no longer be hidden, nor do I want it to be," he says. "To those who have supported me, trusted me and believed in me all this time, I am so very grateful and at the same time so very sorry to each and every single one of you."

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North Korean defector changes story