SEOUL, South Korea - A disgraced South Korean researcher asked his nation's pardon Thursday for fraudulent claims of stem cell breakthroughs, but said junior scientists deceived him and should share blame for the scandal.

"I ask for your forgiveness," Hwang Woo-suk told a nationally televised press conference from Seoul in his first public appearance in nearly three weeks. "I feel so miserable that it's difficult even to say sorry."

Seoul National University, where Hwang is a professor, on Tuesday issued a final report that he fabricated landmark published claims in 2004 and 2005 to have cloned a human embryo and extracted stem cells from it.

"The use of fake data ... is what I have to take full responsibility for as first author. I acknowledge all of that and apologize once again," Hwang said.