According to Yonhap:
A former North Korean spy accused of collecting information on defectors from the communist state was sentenced Friday to five years in jail.
Prosecutors had charged the 63-year-old defendant, identified only by his surname Han, with handing over information about North Korean defectors to Pyongyang’s agents from 1996 until recently.
The Seoul Central District Court said harsh punishment was required in this case because if the court were to be lenient, “there may be other crimes and North Korea may try to take advantage.”
It said that there was consideration, however, for the fact that the defendant committed the crime out of longing for the family he left behind in North Korea.
The former spy from North Korea had switched sides in 1969 when he was arrested for infiltrating into the South on espionage missions. But the prosecution’s investigation discovered that he had been hired back by the North’s military in the process of trying to contact his family.
South Korea’s National Security Law prohibits its citizens from contacting North Koreans without government approval and engaging in activities benefiting the North.
Nearly 20,000 North Koreans, many of them women, have defected to South Korea as of the end of August this year since the 1950-53 Korean War, according to the Unification Ministry.
Read the full story here:
Former N. Korean spy sentenced to five years for espionage
Yonhap
Kim Eun-jung
11/12/2010
