Frenchwoman says killed frozen Seoul babies-source

TOURS, France, Oct 11 (Reuters) A Frenchwoman has said she killed two of her own babies found dead in the freezer of her family's home in South Korea, a police source said today.

A French public prosecutor said on Tuesday a French DNA test had confirmed Veronique Courjault and her husband Jean-Louis were the parents of the children found wrapped in towels and in plastic bags in the deep freeze.

They had previously denied being the parents.

''She admitted killing her children herself,'' said the police source, who asked not to be identified.

The Courjaults' lawyer, Marc Morin, appeared to confirm that police had secured a full confession in brief comments to waiting reporters.

''Mrs Courjault has admitted the facts she is accused of and says she acted on her own,'' Morin said. He did not elaborate.

The lawyer said Mrs Courjault had managed to hide her pregnancy from her husband because of his frequent travelling.

She apparently gave birth to the two children at home.

The Courjaults, who have two other children who are alive, had until Wednesday midday maintained their innocence. They blamed the affair on a conspiracy linked to the husband's work in South Korea as an engineer for a U.S. company.

A French public prosecutor said on Tuesday the results from French DNA tests showed there was a ''99.999 percent chance'' the Courjaults were the parents of the dead babies, confirming the South Korean findings.

The French results led to the couple being detained in the central French city of Tours. Prosecutors there must decide on charges to bring against the couple, who remain in detention.

The bizarre case emerged in July when the husband told Korean police he had found the tiny corpses in the freezer at the family home in Seoul, after interrupting his holiday to return to Korea on business.

According to the Korean authorities, the children were born viable and appear to have breathed. However, they do not appear to have been fed or cleaned after birth, and weighed around 3 kg (six pounds) at birth. Their cause of death remains unknown.

However they met their fate, the infants must have been born before December 2003, when Veronique Courjault, 38, had a hysterectomy.

Veronique Courjault faces investigation by Korean officials but the couple are refusing to return and France does not, in principle, extradite its citizens.

REUTERS