Bad assassin! Bad, bad, bad!

The man at the center of a Cold War-style plot to kill a prominent defector with a poisoned needle was jailed for four years by a South Korean court today.

The man, a defector named Ahn, was found guilty of plotting to murder a second defector, Park Sang Hak, in September last year. Park, who heads Fighters for Free North Korea, is one of the leading lights in the floating of anti-Kim regime leaflets across the DMZ by balloon.

“Severe punishment is needed for crimes that can threaten the safety and very existence of the Republic of Korea,” the judge from Seoul Central District Court commented in the ruling.

Does anyone know what the maximum punishment is for breaking out in uncontrollable laughter in a South Korean courtroom? Because if I ever do that for any reason, I want to be sentenced by this guy.

Ahn was also ordered to pay in fines approximately the amount he received from North Korea, $10,400.

Ahn, who originally defected to South Korea in 1995, allegedly came into contact with a North Korean agent in 2010 while working on inter-Korean economic projects in Mongolia, and it was then that he was ordered to carry out the killing of Park. [Daily NK]

North Korea was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Discuss among yourselves.