This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Pyongyang, North Korea • North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced a Canadian pastor to life in prison with hard labor Wednesday for what it called crimes against the state.
Hyeon Soo Lim, who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, was given the sentence after a 90-minute trial. He has been in detention since February.
The crimes he was charged with included harming the dignity of the supreme leadership, trying to use religion to destroy the North Korean system, disseminating negative propaganda about the North to Koreans overseas and helping U.S. and South Korean authorities lure and abduct North Korean citizens, along with aiding their programs to assist defectors from the North.
State prosecutors sought the death penalty.
Lim's lawyer asked the court to take into account the fact that Lim is a fellow Korean and that he had confessed to everything the prosecution had brought up. Lim pleaded to be given a chance and said if the court gave him one he would not do anything bad again.
In July, Lim appeared at a news conference organized by North Korean authorities in Pyongyang and admitted to plotting to overthrow the North Korean state. Other foreigners detained in North Korea, then released have said they were coerced into making similar statements and confessing guilt during their detention.
Lim's relatives and colleagues have said he traveled Jan. 31 on a humanitarian mission to North Korea where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage. They said Lim, who is in his early 60s, has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997 and that his trips were about helping people and were not political.
North Korea has strict rules against any missionary or religious activities that it sees as threatening the supremacy of its ruling regime. Merely leaving a Bible in a public place can lead to arrest and severe punishment.
The U.S. and Canadian governments warn against travel to North Korea.
Diana Khaddaj, a spokeswoman for Canada's Global Affairs Department, said Canada is "dismayed at the unduly harsh sentence given to Mr. Lim by a North Korean court, particularly given his age and fragile health."