(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-12 10:42

SEOUL, South Korea - Police arrested a 70-year-old man suspected of setting a fire that destroyed the country's top cultural treasure, the 610-year-old Namdaemun gate in Seoul, authorities said Tuesday.

The man, identified only by his family name Chae, was arrested Monday night on Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul, Korean national news organizations said.

South Korea's president-elect Lee Myung-bak (front R) leaves Namdaemun, or "Great South Gate", which was destroyed by fire in Seoul February 11, 2008. The 600-year-old gate in central Seoul listed as South Korea's number one national treasure and the country's landmark symbol has been destroyed, possibly by an arsonist, police said on Monday. The gate, whose history is drummed into South Korean school children from an early age, is a huge loss to ordinary citizens, many of whom gathered to look in horror at a national icon reduced to ashes. [Agencies]

"The suspect has admitted he carried out an arson," police official Lee Man-kook said Tuesday, without giving further details.

The fire broke out Sunday night and burned down the wooden structure at the top of the Namdaemun gate, which once formed part of a wall that encircled the South Korean capital.

Police have secured a letter from the suspect, in which he complained about the compensation of his lands in Gyeonggi province near Seoul and he set the fire to draw social interest, Yonhap news agency said.

Hundreds of stunned South Koreans gathered near the charred structure Monday night.

"My heart is burning," Lee Il-soo, a 56-year-old man who runs a small business, said as he fought back tears. He said the fire had destroyed the pride of South Korea.

Fire burns at Namdaemun, a historic gate which was given the status of National Treasure No. 1, as the gate is collapsing in central Seoul February 11, 2008. [Agencies]

The two-tiered wooden structure was renovated in the 1960s, when it was declared South Korea's top national treasure. The government built a plaza around the gate, officially known as Sungnyemun, in 2005 and opened it to the public the following year for the first time in nearly a century.

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