S.Korea jails scholar for 7 years for aiding North 

SEOUL, Mar 30 (Reuters) A South Korea-born professor who
returned home last year after 37 years' exile in Germany was
jailed for seven years today for working for communist North
Korea, a court official said.

Song Du-yul, a sociologist who is now a German citizen, was
ruled to have engaged in pro-Pyongyang activities and to have
been a ranking member of North Korea's ruling Workers Party.

''Song was sentenced to seven years in prison for working as a
member of North Korea's Workers Party,'' said an official of
Seoul's Central District Court. Judges said he was an
alternative member of the party's politburo, the official said
by telephone.

Intelligence officials said Song had visited the North at
least 18 times between 1973 and 2003 and received instructions
from Pyongyang.

Song was jailed for violations of the National Security Law,
which prohibits a wide range of pro-communist activities.

The trips and his membership in the North's ruling party --
formally an anti-state organisation in south -- broke the
law.

Song's son, Song Rinn, said his father would appeal.

The case has highlighted lingering ideological fault-lines in
South Korea and shown that laws and policies from the Cold War
conflict remain in place in both Koreas despite efforts at
reconciliation over the past several years.

Song, 59, was feted by the South Korean left as a democracy
activist when he came home last year because he had opposed
military governments that ruled the South from the 1960s to
the 1980s. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and members of
his cabinet had urged lenient treatment for Song.