North Korea’s highest court has sentenced a Canadian Christian pastor, Hyeon Soo Lim, to a life sentence with hard labour for “crimes against the state.”

According to BBC, the 60-year-old Lim was arrested in the capital Pyongyang after he travelled there in January for humanitarian work.

The Toronto-based pastor, who is of South Korean origin, was shown at a news conference earlier confessing to a plot to overthrow the government and set up a “religious state.”

The authorities periodically detain foreigners for religious or missionary activity and similar cases have seen staged public confessions from prisoners.

Mr. Lim was sentenced after a 90-minute trial at the North Korean Supreme Court.
 

He was convicted of joining the United States and South Korea in an anti-North Korea human rights “racket” and fabricating and circulating false propaganda materials tarnishing the country’s image.

He was also accused of funding and helping “defectors” to escape, in some cases through Mongolia.