North Korea said Thursday it had sentenced a Korean-American tour operator to 15 years’ hard labor for “hostile acts”, stoking tensions with the United States which had pleaded for his release. Kim Jong-Un’s isolated regime is likely to use the detainee as a bargaining chip, experts said, as it seeks concessions from the United States following weeks of bellicose threats of missile strikes and of nuclear war. Pae Jun-Ho, known in the United States as Kenneth Bae, was arrested in November as he entered the northeastern port city of Rason. He has been accused of trying to “topple the DPRK” (North Korea). “The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labor for this crime,” according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which said his trial was held on April 30. Pyongyang has not specified the basis of the offences allegedly committed by Bae, who is reported to be aged 44, but KCNA has previously said that he admitted his crimes. Seoul-based activist Do Hee-Yoon said that he suspected Bae was arrested because he had taken photographs of emaciated children in North Korea as part of efforts to appeal for more outside aid. The United States had urged North Korea to free the detainee on “humanitarian grounds”, pointing out that he entered the country on a valid visa. A senior US State Department official said Washington was “working to confirm the reports” of Bae’s sentence through the Swedish embassy, which represents US interests in the North in the absence of diplomatic ties. US politician Bill Richardson failed to secure Bae’s release when he visited North Korea in January with Google chairman Eric Schmidt. Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and ex-ambassador to the United Nations, was unable to even meet Bae during his trip, which was criticized by Washington as ill-timed following Pyongyang’s rocket launch in December. Tensions have been running high between the United States and North Korea since Pyongyang carried out a third nuclear test in February.
