North Korean defector in diving gear swims to South Korea, military says

A North Korean man in diving gear swam to South Korea on Tuesday in an apparent bid to defect from Kim Jong Un's Hermit Kingdom, the South Korean military said Wednesday.

He was first spotted on closed-circuit surveillance cameras passing a military checkpoint at 4:20 a.m. but was not captured until three hours later when he had entered the restricted civilian-control zone, the military said. The area is located south of the 2.5-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, that acts as a buffer between the two Koreas. The military acknowledged its failure to act quickly and capture the man.