Pyongyang details imprisoned US citizen’s crimes

North Korea has detailed the crimes of a US citizen recently sentenced to 15 years of compulsory prison labor for hostile acts against the Pyongyang government.

An unnamed Supreme Court spokesman told North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that Pae Jun-Ho, known in the United States as Kenneth Bae, schemed the state’s collapse and smuggled anti-government materials.

The court spokesman said Bae was “dispatched to China as a missionary,” and was involved in establishing “plot-breeding bases” in the country from which he “infiltrated at least 250 students” into the North Korean port city of Rason with the aim of “bringing the government down.”

“He committed such hostile acts as egging on overseas [North Korean] citizens and foreigners to perpetrate hostile acts to bring down its government while conducting a malignant smear campaign,” he added.

On May 2, KCNA said that the 44-year-old American had been arrested in November 2012 after entering Rason as a ‘tourist.’ According to the North Korean news agency, Bae’s trial was held on April 30.

The American was convicted for “carrying out serious crimes” against North Korea. “The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labor for this crime,” the KCNA stated.

On the same day, Patrick Ventrell, acting deputy spokesman for the US State Department, told reporters that Washington urges the North Korean authorities to grant Bae amnesty and “to allow for his immediate release, full stop.”

A North Korean court also sentenced two US journalists to hard labor in 2009 for trespassing and hostile acts after being arrested near North Korea’s border with China and held for four months. The two were freed later.

Tensions have risen between Washington and Pyongyang after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February. Pyongyang had previously launched a long-range rocket on December 12, 2012.