Chung Jung-hee weeps after her husband, South Korea-born dissident Song Doo-yul, was sentenced to seven years in jail for illegal links with North Korea.
Song, 60, an academic at Germany's Muenster University who returned last year after 37 years of exile, was charged under South Korea's anti-communist national security law. He was found guilty of being a member of Pyongyang's ruling politburo and of disseminating North Korean propaganda.
'Heavy punishment is inevitable, because the defendant disseminated the ideology of [the late North Korean leader] Kim Il-sung and his son [Kim Jong-il] in the South, thus negatively affecting a peaceful reunification of the two Koreas,' Judge Lee Dae-gyeong said.
The academic was detained on his return to Seoul last year. Following his arrest, Song admitted visiting North Korea more than 20 times from 1973 and meeting the late leader Kim. The sociology professor was also charged with receiving up to US$100,000 in payments from Pyongyang and was found guilty of promoting North Korean ideology among Korean students in Germany.