Anchor: North Korea has sentenced two South Korean men to life imprisonment on espionage charges. Seoul’s Unification Ministry has called the sentence anti-humanitarian, urging Pyongyang to immediately release and repatriate the South Korean citizens. 
Our Kim In-kyung has more.
 
Report: North Korea has sentenced two South Koreans detained in the country to hard labor for life on charges of espionage and plotting to overthrow the state.
 
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday that the North's highest court convicted Kim Guk-gi and Choi Choon-gil of four crimes.
 
The North Korean court said that the 61-year-old former missionary and 56-year-old businessman confessed to entering the country at the end of March to assassinate the North's highest authorities.
 
The North said in March that the two were arrested after they were bought off by South Korean intelligence authorities as spies. Seoul has denied the accusations.
 
Shortly after the sentence was handed down, Seoul said it could not accept the unfair rulings on the South Korean citizens and demanded their immediate release and repatriation.
 
Unification ministry spokesperson Lim Byung-cheol said Tuesday that the North has refused to grant access to the two men while holding a unilateral trial that flies in the face of international customs.
 
He said the North hasn't provided any explanation about the trial to the South Korean government or the men’s families, which he said violates human rights and the spirit of humanity.
 
The government also urged the North to promptly repatriate Kim Jong-uk, a missionary who has served almost two years of a life sentence, and New York University student Joo Won-moon, who entered the country in April.
 
So far, the North has refused to accept multiple messages from the South requesting their repatriation.
 
Experts have suggested that the life sentences for the two men, coming on the heels of the North's withdrawal from the 2015 Gwangju Summer Universiade, appear to be retaliation for the establishment of a United Nations field office on North Korean human rights in Seoul.
Kim In-kyung, KBS World Radio News.