Kim Dong-chul, of Korean origin and used to live in Virginia, was found guilty at a short trial in Pyongyang, while details of the alleged espionage were not immediately available.
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The arrest follows a 15-year sentence handed to Otto Warmbier, an American university student who was accused of “anti-state activities” while visiting the North as a tourist in 2015.
Kim said that he was approached by South Korean intelligence officers in 2011 to engage in paid espionage, according to KCNA, adding that he was arrested while receiving a USB stick containing military and nuclear secrets from a source.
The U.S. State Department has not explicitly confirmed Kim’s detention, saying that discussing such cases publicly does not help its efforts to free Americans in the North. But the North has released a copy of Kim’s U.S. passport, and South Korean officials said Kim was a Korean-born U.S. citizen.
According to the prosecutor, Kim was running a trade company in Rason, a special economic zone in the DPRK.
North Korea’s three Musudan missile launches, just days ahead of the seventh congress of its ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, is seen as an embarrassment for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is trying to rack up achievements for the congress.
US and South Korean officials have expressed concerns that North Korea could attempt a fifth nuclear test in a show of strength ahead of the congress. He deliberately left a Bible in a local club, which is considered an offense in North Korea.
Initially, Kim was supposed to get a 15-year sentence, but his defense attorney requested leniency due to his old age, KCNA said.
The convicted United States citizen, Kim Dong Chul, has Korean heritage.
North Korea faces the prospect of further worldwide isolation after the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions after its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.
In the past, North Korea has held out until senior US officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Both had crossed North Korea’s border from China illegally.
The North Korean elite reportedly have been seeking out schoolgirls as young as 13 for sexual servitude in a group known as the Gippeumjo, or Pleasure Squad.
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Some of the foreign captives told reporters after their release that officials had coerced them into confessing to crimes at news conferences in Pyongyang.
