A South Korean man has been arrested after confessing to murdering his girlfriend 16 years ago and entombing her body on his balcony under a layer of cement, police told AFP on Tuesday.

The man, who is now in his 50s, was charged with murdering the woman in October 2008 during an argument, according to the Gyeongnam Provincial Police and Geoje Police Station.

He fatally struck the woman with a blunt object then placed her body in a large travel bag, police said.

He then hid the body on his balcony by stacking bricks and pouring on a 10-centimetre (four-inch) layer of cement.

The woman wasn’t reported missing until three years later, as she was not in contact with her own family.

During a 2011 missing person inquiry, the man told police they had “broken up” and the case remained unsolved due to a lack of evidence.

A police official told reporters that the body was not discovered earlier as it had been fitted into the small balcony space, and that the room was “virtually empty since 2016”.

That year, the perpetrator was arrested for drug use, and the landlord said the property was used for storage space.

The body was found last month after a worker who was searching for water leaks found the travel bag.

Upon inspection, police found the woman’s body “preserved to some extent”.

“The body hadn’t completely decomposed to bones, allowing us to identify her using fingerprints,” police said.

The man was brought in for questioning and eventually confessed to the murder.

A police official from Gyeongnam Provincial Police told AFP the investigation and questioning is nearly over and the man will be “sent to prosecution soon”.