A Canadian pastor serving a life sentence in North Korea for subversion said he spends eight hours a day digging holes at a labour camp, while a naturalised American citizen said he is being held by the state for spying, CNN reported from Pyongyang. If confirmed, Kim Dong Chul, who CNN said was 60 and formerly of Fairfax, Virginia, would be the second Western citizen known to be held currently in North Korea. He was being held for spying for South Korea and asked the South or the US government to rescue him, CNN said.

Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian who was the head pastor at one of Canada's largest churches, has been held by the North since last February. Lim, who was 60 at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to hard labour for life in December for attempting to overthrow the North's regime. "I wasn't originally a labourer, so the labour was hard at first," Lim told CNN in Korean through an interpreter. "But now I've gotten used to it."

The charges against Lim lacked specifics, but he said it may be related to his open criticism of the North's three generations of leaders. "I admit I've violated this government's authority, system and order," Lim said in the interview aired on Monday. Asked if his biggest crime was speaking badly of the North's leaders, he said: "Yes, I think so."

Copyright Reuters, 2016