HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has sentenced an American teacher to eight years of hard labor and ordered him to pay a $700,000 fine after he crossed illegally into the country – the fourth U.S. citizen to be detained by the isolated regime since last year.
Aijalon Mahli Gomes, of Boston, acknowledged his wrongdoing during a trial at the Central Court on Tuesday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch Wednesday.
The North said last month it arrested Gomes, 30, on Jan. 25 for trespassing after he crossed into the country from China.