NoKor sentences American 15 years of hard labor

North Korea sentenced U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years hard labor on for committing crimes against the state.

His sentencing comes after two months in which he was doing threatening behavior, intended to frighten someone, or in other words "saber-rattling" by Pyongyang that involves the nuclear battle between North and South Korea.

Bae, 44, a tour operator from the US state of Washington, was accused of attempting to overthrow the government, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. South Korean human rights campaigners have speculated that authorities were angered by photographs Bae had reportedly taken of starving children and the public executions of dissenters.

He was arrested in Rason in 2012, a special economic zone in North Korea's far north-eastern region bordering China and Russia.

Bae, was born in South Korea but is a naturalized American citizen and attended the University of Oregon. According to U.S. media, he most recently lived in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood. He is also believed to be a devout Christian, according to human rights activists in South Korea, who say he may have been arrested for taking pictures of starving children, known as "kotjebi" or fluttering swallows.

The guilty sentence, which had been expected, could further stoke tensions between the North and the US despite signs that the regime has stepped back from its fiery rhetoric of the last month. Moreover, the sentence is even heavier than the 12 years handed down to two U.S journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, in 2009, who were arrested for illegally crossing the border while doing a documentary about defectors.

Pyongyang threatened a nuclear attack against the US mainland – although experts say it is incapable of launching such a weapon – in protest at UN sanctions imposed after it conducted an atomic test in February. North Korea had also voiced anger over annual military drills involving the South and the US that ended this week.

North Korea appears to use the release of high profile American prisoners to extract a form of personal tribute, rather than for economic or diplomatic gain, often portraying visiting dignitaries as paying homage.

According to North Korean law, the punishment for hostile acts against the state is between five and 10 years hard labor.