North Korea’s highest court yesterday sentenced two South Koreans accused of spying to hard labour for life, its state media said, calling the punishment a lesson for those who conspire with Washington and Seoul.
The report of the sentencing came as the UN opened a field office in Seoul to investigate rights abuses in North Korea, a plan that has drawn anger from Pyongyang, which denies wrongdoing.
North Korea has accused the two men, Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil, of working as spies for the South’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) from the Chinese border city of Dandong. They were arrested in March.
The North’s KCNA news agency said the two were convicted of conspiracy to overturn the state, espionage and illegal entry and of working under the control of the US and South Korean governments.
“The crimes of the spies of the puppet intelligence agency prove that the US and the puppet South are the masterminds of political terror and kingpins of trickery and show what miserable plight awaits those who conspire with them,” it said.
The NIS has denied the accusations as “groundless”. Kim and Choe said in interviews with CNN in May that they had spied for the South.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles ties with the North, expressed “strong regret” over sentences and demanded the two men be freed.