According to a Japanese journalist North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has been dead for the past five years.
Toshimitsu Shigemura is also a university professor in Japan and has been named by Japanese magazine, Shakun Gendai, as a leading figure on the Korean Peninsula.
His latest book, titled The True Character of Kim Jong Il has raised controversial question over Jong Il’s identity.
According to Mr Shigemura’s unnamed sources, Jong Il was a diabetic and in 2000 the illness confined him to a wheelchair for approximately three years before his alleged death in 2003.
The practice of leaders having multiple doubles is a familiar one since it was revealed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein used them when he was alive.