The Rev. Lim Hyeon-soo, a South Korea-born pastor of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, was convicted of carrying out “subversive plots” and committing “activities against” North Korea, like harming the dignity of the supreme leadership of Kim Jong-un, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

The agency said that Mr. Lim, 60, had confessed to “all heinous crimes” he had committed “pursuant to the state-sponsored political terrorism and anti-D.P.R.K. hostile policy of the U.S. and South Korean authorities.” D.P.R.K. stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korean prosecutors had called for the death penalty for Mr. Lim, the news agency said, adding that he had also been accused of helping “lure and abduct” North Korean citizens, calling them defectors. But his government-appointed lawyer asked the court to let him live “so he can see the true face” of North Korea, it said.

Mr. Lim, who had visited North Korea more than 100 times on what his church called humanitarian missions, lost contact with his congregation after entering the country in late January. In July, a tearful Mr. Lim appeared in a government-arranged news conference in Pyongyang and confessed to plotting to overthrow the North Korean leadership by undermining the “worship” of Kim Jong-un.

http://www.nytimes.com/