Seoul (South Korea) - What was widely reported on Wednesday as a case of accidental death due to an exploding cell phone battery has now been found to be a cover-up of a different kind of accidental death. A co-worker, named Kwon Young-sup, who originally told police that he found the victim, named Seo, bleeding from the nose and lying dead, has now confessed to accidentally killing him while operating a large piece of heavy machinery. This is being reported by The Korean Times newspaper.

Kwon said, "I was moving the excavator [a large backhoe on tracks] and Seo was suddenly out of my sight. I ran out and saw he was lying down bleeding and his clothes on fire.’’ Kwon told this story to police, according to The Korean Times. "All this happened in a moment, and I was too afraid about the accident. So I lied that the battery exploded and killed Seo." This news spread across the Internet very rapidly on Wednesday as the possibility of an exploding cell phone battery, something most everybody has these days, is big news.

The coroner assigned to the case found evidence which suggested Kwon’s story could not be accurate. There chest damage to Seo was too wide-spread to have been caused by a cell phone battery explosion. This raised questions about the real cause. A spokesman for LG electronics came out and flatly denied that the battery could have exploded in the manner described, stating that their batteries were lithium polymer, and not lithium ion based. The confession came from Kwon after this information was presented. Kwon said, "I was too afraid about the accident. So I lied that the battery exploded and killed Seo."

Read more ... The Sydney Morning Herald, which covered in English the Korean Times newspaper story.