N. Korea frees jailed Canadian pastor amid standoff with US

SEOUL/TORONTO: North Korea freed a Canadian pastor serving a life sentence on humanitarian grounds, the Canadian prime minister and North Korea’s KCNA news agency said, just hours after the United States warned it would counter any threat from the North with ‘fire and fury.’

There was no clear connection between the release of Hyeon Soo Lim and the heightened rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.

A statement from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office yesterday said that Lim had been freed and “will soon be reunited with his family and friends”.

His case was taken up by a delegation led by the country’s national security adviser that had gone to North Korea earlier in the week, it said. Sweden’s embassy in Pyongyang, which represents several Western nations in the insular nation, had also helped, the statement said.

“Operational security considerations prevent us from discussing the matter further,” it said.

Lim, who served in one of the largest churches in Canada, had been sentenced to hard labour for life in December 2015 after North Korea accused him of attempting to overthrow the regime.

“Strategically, North Korea perhaps hopes to engender some goodwill from Canada as tensions rise,” said Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in China.

“TheyhopethatCanadapresents some moderating influence on the Trump administration. (But) I do not think it is directly connected to the tensions the US president has ratcheted up. North Korea is concerned he would die in prison.”

North Korea has in the past attracted the attention of Washington and visits by high-profile Americans with the detention and release of US citizens.

KCNA said Lim had been released on ‘sick bail’ by the country’s Central Court for humanitarian reasons.

Lim is expected to return to Canada later yesterday and will be hospitalised on arrival at his wife’s request, a source familiar with the matter said.

His family is arriving separately. — AFP