Seoul - Prosecutors said on Wednesday they have charged a South Korean pastor who secretly entered North Korea to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il-Sung.
The pastor, a 75-year-old US resident only identified by his family name Hong, is accused of visiting the North without Seoul government approval to celebrate the event on April 15.
Hong was also charged on Tuesday with praising the regime, meeting North Korean officials and possessing propaganda material for the communist regime, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on Wednesday.
The South's tough National Security Law bans activity sympathetic to the North's regime such as forming pro-Pyongyang groups, contacting North Koreans without government permission and distributing propaganda.
Prosecutors said Hong travelled with six other North Korea sympathisers. They returned directly to the United States while Hong stopped in South Korea.
Prosecutors said Hong's group belongs to a US-based alliance of North Korea sympathisers that has sent a delegation for Kim's birthday every year since 2001.
Kim died in 1994 and his son Kim Jong-Il is current leader of the country. - Sapa-AFP