North Korea sentenced a South Korean missionary to life with hard labor on Friday after convicting him of espionage and setting up an underground church.
North Korea’s official KCNA news agency reported that the South Korean, identified as Kim Jong-uk, had admitted his guilt at a court trial held on Friday.
The ruling followed a recent exchange of fire between forces of the tightly controlled North and Western-allied South Korea.
Both sides are still technically at war since the 1950 to 1953 conflict ended in a truce.
‘TRESPASSING’
“The accused admitted to all his crimes. He tried to infiltrate into Pyongyang after illegally trespassing on the border for the purpose of setting up underground church and gathering information about the internal affairs of the DPRK [Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea] while luring its inhabitants into South Korea and spying on the DPRK,” KCNA said.
Kim, a South Korean Christian missionary, was put on show at a televised event in February and confessed to spying for the South Korean intelligence agency as well as to his church activities.
Pyongyang has rejected calls from Seoul for his release and for his family to visit him.
MARITIME INCIDENT
Earlier last month, Seoul accused North Korea of firing two artillery rounds across their maritime border near a South Korean navy patrol ship.
They did not hit the vessel and South replied with several rounds.
Pyongyang, whose young leader Kim Jong-un is the third ruler from the Kim dynasty, denied it had fired.
North Korea is still holding Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary sentenced to 15 years of hard labor on charges of trying to use religion to overthrow its political system.
The isolated country has twice canceled visits by US Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King to discuss Bae’s case.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in