SEOUL, Dec. 16 (UPI) — North Korea sentenced a detained Canadian pastor to life imprisonment with hard labor 10 months after taking him into custody.
Pyongyang’s state-controlled KCNA reported, “The trial of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, who undertook a special plot to overthrow the state, took place before the Supreme Court on Dec. 16.”
North Korea said the defendant received a life sentence with hard labor and was found guilty of violating Pyongyang’s Criminal Law Article 60, or conspiring to overthrow the Kim Jong Un regime. Pyongyang added there were “witnesses” who had evidence of Lim’s wrongdoing.
Speaking on behalf of the defendant, 60, North Korea said Lim had admitted to his wrongdoing: adopting South Korea’s anti-Pyongyang hostile actions by “insulting [North Korea’s] highest dignity and its system with vicious slander” and “harboring ill will and attempting to take down [North Korea].”
North Korea’s prosecutor allegedly demanded a death sentence for Lim but was overruled. KCNA stated the sentence was reduced in order for Lim to live to see the day the Koreas are unified.
The pastor, founder of Light Presbyterian Church in Toronto, immigrated to Canada from South Korea in 1986. As part of his work, Lim had traveled to North Korea 110 times for humanitarian work and also had served as a Christian missionary in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and China.
South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Sinmun reported the pastor supported the construction of nursing homes and childcare centers in North Korea. He left for North Korea on Jan. 27. Communication stopped on Jan. 30, and Canadian diplomats later were informed that Hyeon had been placed in detention.
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said that under Kim Jong Un the regime has become more sensitive to visitors with a religious mission, Yonhap reported.
Lim could have been engaging in missionary activity, but that claim is debatable, Kim Yong-hyun said.
