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Reuters

North Korea’s highest court has sentenced a South Korea-born Canadian pastor to hard labour for life for subversion, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
Hyeon Soo Lim, the head pastor at a Toronto church that is one of Canada’s largest, has been held by North Korea since February. Earlier this year, he had appeared on North Korean state media confessing to crimes against the state.
North Korea’s supreme court said Lim had attempted to overthrow the North Korean government and undermine its social system with “religious activities” for the past 18 years, Xinhua reported.
Watch: North Korea sentences Canadian pastor to life of hard labor

The court held that he fabricated anti-North Korean propaganda as part of a US and South Korean-led “human rights racket” against the country, according to Xinhua.
The court said Lim confessed to helping people defect from North Korea, and said he had met the US ambassador to Mongolia regarding the plans, Xinhua reported.
Most North Korean defectors fleeing the isolated, repressive country travel to South Korea via China and Southeast Asia, although it is possible to defect via Mongolia.
North Korea’s official KCNA news agency has not reported on the court’s decision.
North Korea has previously sentenced a Korean-American missionary, Kenneth Bae, to 15 years of hard labour but released him last year after holding him for two years.

In July, Lim appeared at a news conference in North Korea and confessed that he had travelled to the country on the pretext of humanitarian work and gathered information that he used in sermons outside the country to drive the regime to a collapse “with the love of God”.
His church, the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church, has said Lim had visited the North more than 100 times since 1997 and has helped establish an orphanage and a nursing home there.
Lim has lived in Canada since 1986 and is a Canadian citizen.
His church said in March that Lim, who was 60 at the time, has “a very serious health problem, very high blood pressure, he’s on a prescription, and his family is anxious to send medicine”.
Both North Korea and neighbouring China have clamped down on Christian groups in recent years.
Last year, Pyongyang released three detained Americans including Bae and another man who had left a copy of the Bible at a club. It freed a South Korean national with a US green card in October this year after holding him for six months.
In June, the North’s highest court sentenced two South Koreans accused of spying for Seoul to hard labour for life. The pair are among three South Koreans known to held by the North.


Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim sentenced to hard labour for life by North Korean court as punishment for ‘human rights racket’

Hyeon Soo Lim, center, who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, is escorted to his sentencing in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015. North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced a Canadian pastor to life in prison with hard labor on Wednesday for what it called crimes against the state. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

(FILES) This file picture taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on July 30, 2015 shows Canadian reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, who is being held in North Korea, during a public interrogation at the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang. North Korea has sentenced a Canadian pastor to life imprisonment following his arrest at the beginning of the year on subversion charges, China's official news agency reported on December 16, 2015. AFP PHOTO / KCNA via KNS REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT THIS PICTURE WAS MADE AVAILABLE BY A THIRD PARTY. AFP CAN NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PHOTO IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY AFP. ---EDITORS NOTE--- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / KCNA VIA KNS" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Hyeon Soo Lim (centre) being escorted to his sentencing in Pyongyang, North Korea. Photo: AP

'Be ready for war', Kim Jong-un tells North Korea's troops after issuing ultimatum to end South's propaganda broadcasts

Kim Jong-Un at an emergency meeting on Thursday. Photo: AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front) during an emergency meeting of the powerful Central Military Commission yesterday. Photo: AFP

A South Korean soldier pulls barricades across a road leading to North Korea's Kaesong joint industrial complex at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju on Friday. Photo: AFP

A South Korean soldier walks by barricades on the road leading to North Korea's Kaesong joint industrial complex. Photo: AFP

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A still image taken from North Korea's state-run KRT television footage shows Jang Song Thaek being forcibly removed from a WPK meeting in Pyongyang.

Canadian pastor goes ‘missing’ after aid mission to North Korea

North Korean children throw stones into the Yalu River from Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong. The missing Canadian reverend helped run a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage in the Rajin region. Photo: Reuters

China court jails Christian pastor for 12 years

Zhang Shaojie of the Nanle County Christian Church in Henan province was jailed for 12 years on Friday. Photo; Screenshot

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North Korea has previously sentenced a Korean-American missionary, Kenneth Bae, to 15 years of hard labour but released him last year after holding him for two years.
