PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic Of – North Korea on Friday sentenced a US citizen of Korean heritage to 10 years in prison after convicting him of espionage and subversion, the second American it has put behind bars this year.
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Kim Dong Chul, center, a US citizen detained in North Korea, is escorted to his trial on April 29, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea.
A media source explained that Kim he had been working for South Korean intelligence authorities and he wanted to spread religion among its citizens.
Kim said his two daughters lived in NY and he had siblings in South Korea, KCNA said in March.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the main agency in the country, has denied that it employed Mr Kim. His sentencing came a month and a half after North Korea sentenced a USA college student, Otto F. Warmbier, to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal a political banner from his hotel in Pyongyang.
The botched launches came despite the North’s first Musudan also ended in catastrophic failure earlier in the month.
In March, North Korea sentenced Otto Warmbier, an American university student, to 15 years in prison with hard labor.
Some foreigners held by North Korea have said after their release that their sometimes-elaborate confessions were made under pressure while in captivity.
North Korea has previously handed down lengthy hard labor sentences to foreigners, though eventually freeing them before they served their full terms. He was arrested in October 2015.
There have been no South Korea reports of troop movements at the border. He is the second American this year imprisoned by North Korea.
According to department policy, the US can only comment publicly on cases in which the citizen has signed a privacy waiver.
Some of the foreign captives told reporters after their release that officials had coerced them into confessing to crimes at news conferences in Pyongyang.
North Korea is holding a much anticipated Workers’ Party congress starting May 6, the first such forum since 1980.
“Throughout history, the United States has regarded sanctions as a major means for pursuing its foreign policy and deliberately wielded this stick against countries and people disobedient to its definition of global law”, the spokesman said.
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Separately, North Korea accused American soldiers at Panmunjom, the “truce village” inside the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, of “dangerous provocations” over the past month, including pointing their fingers, “making weird remarks” and mocking the North Korean side “through disgusting expression and behavior”.
