BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, team expelled from North Korea

British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes was detained in North Korea and is being expelled for his reporting, authorities have announced at a press conference.

He will be joined on the plane by BBC producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard, the British broadcaster added.

He was questioned for eight hours by North Korean officials and made to sign a statement apologizing, according to the BBC.

All three have now been taken to the airport by their minders.

North Korean authorities said they took issue with "disrespectful" reports he filed from inside the country last week. He was detained at the airport and questioned, but has since been released.

Another BBC correspondent was at the press conference -- there were only a handful of news outlets presence, and CNN was the only American network -- who used the word 'interrogated' and asked how the world would view the fact that North Korea had detained and punished a journalist for reporting things that they didn't agree with. The question remained unanswered and the official walked out of the room.

Officials say that the BBC reporter violated local customs and acted in an aggressive manner during his trip.

CNN's Will Ripley, who is in Pyongyang for the Seventh Congress of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, reported the news of the crew's expulsion.

Wingfield-Hayes and his team were in the country with three Nobel Laureates on a trip organized by the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation (IPF) ahead of the Workers' Party Congress, along with Prince Alfred of Liechtenstein, who chairs the IPF's advisory board.

He told CNN the day before his detention and subsequent expulsion that he had been spoken to very harshly by the North Korean authorities about his reporting, which had highlighted aspects of life in the capital.

The BBC confirmed the expulsion, writing "BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes detained in North Korea and to be expelled from country over reporting," shortly after the news of the press conference broke.

The BBC is working to get him out of the country. He will never be allowed back into the reclusive state, North Korean authorities said. North Korea takes few things as seriously as comments that are deemed disrespectful to their leader.

The congress is the first in the country for 36 years. Friday saw around 3,000 party members and more than 100 international media outlets pour in for this once-in-a-generation political gathering, officials told CNN.

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com