SUWON, South Korea — She's accused of being the Mata Hari of North Korea, a temptress-spy who for years seduced secrets from South Korean military officers.

The method was potentially lethal: Won Jeong Hwa reportedly plotted to assassinate South Korean agents with poisoned needles provided by handlers from Pyongyang.

The 34-year-old North Korean native was arrested during the summer along with her 63-year-old stepfather and accused of seven years of espionage and deceit after defecting to South Korea. Under questioning, she detailed for South Korean investigators a double life working for one of the world's most repressive regimes.

The case of Won, only the second Northern spy to face trial here in the past decade, has riveted the South Korean public while embarrassing the nation's vaunted intelligence network. The media have dubbed her "Mata Hari," after the notorious dancer-turned-World War I agent.

Promoted by authorities here as a model North Korean defector following her arrival in 2001 at Seoul's Incheon International Airport, Won was enlisted to tour military bases to lecture troops on the evils of the Stalinist state.

All the while, prosecutors say, she pursued her real agenda: collecting photos of military installations and weapons systems, keeping lists of North Korean defectors and personal data about Southern military officers.

While awaiting sentencing for espionage, Won's life and motives remain a mystery. Was she a major North Korean operative, as authorities claim? Or merely a hapless thief brainwashed by the North to provide information that amounted to nothing more than what could be found on the Internet, as her court-appointed lawyer insists.

For its part, North Korea denies Won was its agent, calling her "human scum" and describing the case as a "threadbare charade" to embarrass the North, which has remained technically at war with the South since their conflict ended in an armistice in 1953.

Last week, Won appeared before a crowded courtroom as a three-judge panel considered her fate. Donned in olive green prison-issue top and pants, her hair tied in a ponytail, she focused on the judges as the prosecutor read a long list of charges.

One of her main missions, they alleged, was to locate Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector, who is guarded by police against assassination attempts.

Many say the case, reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War, raises questions about how many North Korean spies might be operating in South Korea. Some 4,500 northern operatives have been exposed since 1948.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg," said Dong Bok-lee, a former South Korea intelligence officer. "And apparently these planted North Korean agents have been very free to go about their work."

During the hourlong court hearing, the mother of a 7-year-old daughter pleaded for leniency, her voice breaking in the hushed courtroom.

"I wanted to turn myself in but I couldn't, because my family is in the North and they could be executed," she sobbed. "Please let me live with my daughter while I repent myself."

Won has told investigators she is a second-generation North Korean spy — the youngest daughter of a Northern operative killed during an espionage mission in the South.

Authorities say Won served jail time for theft in the North and feared possible execution. She fled to China but returned and was recruited by North Korea's National Security Agency.

Her first assignment as a spy was to return to China to identify and send back home — to certain imprisonment or death — fellow countrymen who were trying to defect to the South. While in China, she became pregnant by a South Korean businessman.

Won came to South Korea later that year disguised as Chinese-Korean looking for her baby's father. She had considered an abortion but was convinced by handlers to deliver the baby as a way to dispel suspicions in the South, according to Korean press reports.

After passing the detailed debriefing given all defectors by South Korea's National Intelligence Service, Won was assigned the task of delivering anti-North lectures at military bases.

Over the next year and a half, she gave scores of talks to soldiers, employing North Korean propaganda videos. Won used the occasions to seduce South Korean officers, authorities say. In all, Won maintained romantic relations with three or four officers and used "sex as a tool" for her mission, investigators allege. They say she also lived with a 26-year-old South Korean army captain. The officer knew she was a spy. He was also arrested.

Won traveled to China a dozen times over five years to report and receive instructions and collect the needles she was planning to use, but never did, to kill South Korean agents, authorities say. She was arrested in August, three years after South Korean agents began monitoring her, following a report by a military officer she had approached for information.

Many have doubts about Won's spying, including some North Korean defectors.

"It is probably true that she received espionage orders from North Korea. But she doesn't seem one of those special spy agents who are dispatched directly by the government," said Zhu Sung Ha, who fled North Korea in 2001. "She may have approached North Korean agents to make money."

While Won could receive the death penalty when she is sentenced later in October, South Korean authorities are seeking far fewer sanctions. In court, the prosecutor asked for a five-year sentence, saying he believed she regretted her spying.

"The accused has been quite cooperative in investigations, repenting deeply her past. Her statements helped us arrest her stepfather," he said.

Asked by the judge to make a final statement, Won muttered incoherently. But her written statements to investigators reveal a case to save her life.

"I endured difficult training and worked hard to carry out missions as an agent, believing that rendering loyalty (to the North's leader) is everything," she wrote. "But while living in the South, I started to have doubts about the North Korean regime, and my mind was in emotional conflict."

She added: "It is my sin to have been born in the North."