North Korea show trial sentences US ‘spy’ to 10 years hard labour

Railroaded: Kim Dong-chul is escorted to his show trial in Pyongyang.

North Korea yesterday sentenced a second American, Kim Dong-chul, to 10 years of hard labour on trumped-up charges of spying and stealing state secrets, upping the ante with the West ahead of a ruling party congress in the hermit state.

The sentencing of the 62-year-old comes six weeks after the world’s last Stalinist dictatorship ordered 21-year-old university student Otto Warmbier to serve 15 years of hard labour for trying to “steal” a propaganda poster from his Pyongyang hotel.

The show trail came as China and Russia urged the US not to install a new anti-missile system in South Korea, and defectors and activists launched about 300,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets in gas-filled balloons over the border.

The US and South Korea have begun talks on the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system after North Korea tested its fourth nuclear bomb on January 6 and conducted missile tests. The nuclear test and missile launches are in violation of UN resolutions against North Korea and are backed by Russia and China.

US and South Korean officials have expressed concern the North could attempt a fifth nuclear test to burnish the credentials of dictator Kim Jong-un ahead of the first Workers’ Party congress in 36 years, which begins next Friday.

On Thursday, South Korea’s government said that Pyongyang twice tried, and failed, to launch a new ballistic missile.

The sentencing of Mr Kim came after a brief trial yesterday at North Korea’s Supreme Court. Last month, state media accused the Virginia businessman of obtaining classified documents about North Korea’s nuclear and military plans, at the behest of US and South Korean intelligence.

When he was paraded before the media in Pyongyang last month, Mr Kim said under obvious duress that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North’s leadership and had tried to spread religion among North Koreans before his arrest in the city of Rason last October.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has said Mr Kim’s case wasn’t related to the organisation in any way

According to North Korea’s official media, Mr Kim was born in Seoul before immigrating to the US in the early 1970s. He moved to the border region between China and North Korea in 2005 to set up a trading company.

Speaking in Beijing with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the US should respect “legitimate concerns” of China and Russia over THAAD.

“This move goes beyond the defensive needs of the relevant countries. If it is deployed it will directly impact China’s and Russia’s respective strategic security,” Mr Wang said. “Not only does it threaten the resolution of the peninsula nuclear issue, it quite possibly could pour oil on the fire of an already tense situation, and even destroy strategic equilibrium on the peninsula.”

The North’s actions should not be used as an excuse to make moves that would escalate tensions, especially the US deployment of an anti-missile system, Mr Lavrov said.

The North’s drive to develop nuclear weapons has angered China, Pyongyang’s sole supporter. But Beijing fears THAAD and its radar have a range that would extend far beyond the Korean peninsula and into China.

WSJ, AP, AFP, Reuters