North Korea on Friday sentenced a U.S. citizen to 10 years in prison, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.
Kim Dong Chul, 62, was sentenced after a brief trial in Pyongyang. He is the second American this year imprisoned by North Korea.
Kim, who was born in South Korea and later became a U.S. citizen, apparently confessed during the trial to stealing military secrets to help his native country, BBC News reported, However, forced public confessions by foreign prisoners are common in the totalitarian state.
Further details were not immediately available.
Friday's sentencing comes after Otto Warmbier, an American University student, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for what North Korea described as committing anti-state activities while visiting the country as a tourist earlier this year.
Kim said he was first approached by South Korean intelligence officers in 2011 to engage in paid espionage, the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported. He was arrested while receiving a USB stick containing military and nuclear secrets from a source.
In a separate development, North Korea on Friday accused U.S. soldiers of trying to provoke its troops with “disgusting” acts and encouraging South Korean soldiers to aim their guns at the North, the Associated Press reported.
North Korea warned U.S. soldiers to stop what it called “hooliganism” at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or they’ll meet a “dog’s death any time and any place.”
“GIs hurled fully armed MPs of the South Korean puppet army into perpetrating such dangerous provocations as aiming at,” North Korea's military, a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. and South Korea.
About 28,000 American troops are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.
