Hyeon Soo Lim, the 60-year-old lead pastor in the Toronto-based Light Korean Presbyterian Church, has been imprisoned in North Korea since February. In August 2015 he reportedly admitted to a Pyongyang church his intention to act against the country.
"The worst crime I committed was to rashly defame and insult the highest dignity and the system of the republic," he said in a purported confession, posted to a state-controlled website.
The pastor had repeatedly tried to overthrow the North Korean government with his "subversive plots," the Chinese Xinhua news agency cited the court as saying.
Lim's lawyers asked for leniency in the face of the prosecution's request for the death penalty.
The pastor held over 100 humanitarian missions in North Korea that were not politically related beginning in 1997, according to relatives. Lim was arrested on January 31, when he traveled to North Korea with co workers amid regular missionary work establishing an orphanage and a nursing home.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau strongly condemned the punishment, calling it "unduly harsh."
"The issues of North Korea's governance and judicial system are well known. We are very concerned about someone being sentenced to life in North Korea," he told journalists.
According to Xinhua, Lim said that he had provided assistance for people to defect from North Korea and had met with the U.S. ambassador to Mongolia to discuss the issue.
Mongolia is considered as a possible route for defectors fleeing Kim Jong-un regime to South Korea.
According to a Canadian source close to the case, the trustworthiness of allegations claiming Lim had been plotting escape is close to zero.
"Is it possible that Pastor Lim crossed paths with the small diplomatic community and the American ambassador while he was in Ulan Baator at some point on his numerous travels to the country? Maybe. Would it be unusual? No," said the source.
A spokeswoman for Lim's church echoed the anonymous source while saying that "he (Lim) did not meet with any official there (Mongolia)."
"The capitulation on that issue at the previous press conference in the DPRK, therefore, was curious," church spokeswoman Lisa Pak said in an email.
Last November, North Korea released Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
Lim, a Canadian citizen who has been living there for 29 years, has allegedly had very serious problems with health because of high blood pressure. He is the only Western citizen known to be held nowadays in North Korea.
The Canadian government has been restricted to communicate with Lim, which said to be "a serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations," according to the country's foreign ministry.
It's not the first time North Korea's highest court sentenced South Koreans as this June it accused two men of spying for Seoul and further imprisoned them to hard labor for life.
