A dozen of North Korea’s medical professionals undertook a three-month training program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States after their leader Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in 2008, a South Korean doctor claimed Thursday.

Lee Byung-hoon, an adviser to the Seoul-based Korean Medical Association, said he heard the information from a Korean professor in the cancer center last year while training at the same center.

Lee said the North requested the training from the MD Anderson Cancer Center through its top envoy to the United Nations in New York. North Korea handles issues involving the United States through its mission to the U.N. as it does not have diplomatic relations with the United States.

Lee said the North Korean medical professionals specialized in diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, adding that the North also asked the MD Anderson Cancer Center to send books on heart attacks a month before Kim was reported to have died of a heart attack. (Yonhap News)