A local pop artist was caught scattering flyers lampooning President Park Geun-hye from the rooftop of a building in downtown Seoul on Monday, police said.

Lee Ha, 46, was arrested after a police officer found a leaflet near a building not far from Seoul's iconic Gwanghwamun Square around noon. An official at the Jongno Police Station said Lee was apprehended on charges of trespassing, not for spreading flyers.

"We found his entering a private property without permission problematic, and that's why we arrested him," the official said, adding the owner of the building hadn't reported him to the police.

The flyers bore an image of Park wearing a floral top and a blue skirt, alluding to a female character in the poster of the 2005 South Korean hit movie "Welcome to Dongmakgol." It read "Wanted" on top and "Mad Government" at bottom.

Lee tossed about 4,500 flyers from the rooftop of the Donghwa Duty Free Shop building, authorities said, while three of his colleagues distributed an additional 15,000 in Seoul's busiest central and western subway stations.

Lee later told Yonhap News Agency by phone that President Park seems to have "returned to the past by not resolving controversies surrounding her election and cyber censorship."

Critics allege that the state intelligence agency orchestrated an online political campaign to help Park win the 2012 presidential election. 

The government is under fire for allegedly monitoring private messages sent on Kakao Talk, the flagship service of South Korea's top mobile messenger operator Daum Kakao, in order to sift out remarks critical of President Park and her administration.   

"I put on this performance to poke fun at this 'mad government' and this mad world we live in," Lee said. (Yonhap)