North Korea has sentenced a South-Korean born American citizen to 10 years of hard labor.
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North Korea failed to launch two intermediate-range ballistic missiles Thursday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said, adding to a string of unsuccessful weapons tests in the past two weeks.
Prosecutors were seeking a 15-year hard labor sentence for Kim Dong Chul for committing “offenses in a scheme to overthrow the socialist sytem of the DPRK”, according to state-run news agency KCNA.
When he was paraded before the media in Pyongyang last month, Kim said he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North’s leadership and had tried to spread religion among North Koreans before his arrest in the city of Rason last October.
Some experts had predicted that North Korea would wait until it figured out what went wrong in the previous launch before attempting another, a process that could take months.
The 62-year-old, who became a naturalized USA citizen in 1987, was arrested back in October.
Unless South Korea returns the 12 female North Korean restaurant workers, North Korea warned that a “ruthless response” will follow.
United States and South Korean officials have expressed worries that North Korea could try a nuclear test that was fifth in a display of strength ahead of the congress. According to United States diplomatic sources leaked via Wikileaks, North Korea also delivered 19 of the missiles to Iran, but Tehran has not displayed those missiles in public. The North is also holding a Korean-Canadian Christian pastor, who is serving a life sentence for subversion.
“State news agency KCNA showed Kim confessing to all his crimes in a scripted news conference in March”.
The man, Kim Dong-chul, is the latest US citizen to receive a harsh sentence in North Korea, which has often used the fates of Americans held there as leverage in dealing with Washington.
On Saturday, North Korea tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which travelled about 18 miles off its east coast. He was convicted and sentenced after a one-hour trial in the Supreme Court.
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”.
South Korean and USA officials are investigating the cause of the failure, it said.
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“We strongly condemn Pyongyang’s distortion of the mass-defection case, repeatedly made false claims and threats against Seoul”.
