Guk-gi Kim (61) and Chun-gil Choi (56) were sentenced to life imprisonment by the North Korean government on June 23 (local time). Kim is a pastor, and both are South Korean natives.
The South Korean government immediately expressed their response to the news and called on the North Korean government to release the two detainees immediately.
"By unilaterally carrying out a show trial without any kind of prior notification to the South Korean government or to the families of the accused and by unfairly sentencing them to life in prison, North Korea is in flagrant violation not only of international practices, but also of human rights and the humanitarian spirit," said the Unification Ministry in South Korea in a statement. The Unification Ministry added that the two men were denied representation by South Korean lawyers.
The men were accused of espionage and 'state subversion.' South Korea denied the claims.
"Kim Guk-gi and Choi Chun-gil, spies and agents for the puppet regime who were apprehended while plotting and spying against the Republic under the control of the Americans and their puppet regime in South Korea, were tried in the Supreme Court and sentenced to life in prison," the North Korean government stated through KCNA, its state broadcasting agency.
Experts say that Tuesday's sentences may be connected to the opening of the U.N. office in Seoul, dedicated to investigating human rights violations in North Korea.
"North Korea thinks South Korea is applying pressure on Pyongyang with the U.N. office, so it's responding by [sentencing] these South Korean nationals," Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at Sejong Institute, told the Associated Press.
Kim Guk-gi, as a part of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, helped North Korean refugees in China and provided various medicinal and technological help for North Korean families and agriculture for ten years.
According to Chinese reports, Kim was requested by the North Korean government to come into Pyongyang late last year, and thereafter on March 26, the two men were reported to have been arrested for "zealously [taking] part in the anti-DPRK smear campaign of the U.S. imperialists and the puppet group of traitors to isolate and blockade the DPRK in [the] international arena."
