A local court here said Tuesday it has sentenced a male North Korean defector to three years behind bars for raping a female fellow defector in the course of escaping from the communist country.

The court also ordered that his identity and personal information be disclosed on the Internet for five years.

The 37-year-old man, identified only with his family name Nahm, was convicted of raping the 26-year-old woman in May 2011 while both were staying at a temporary shelter arranged by a broker for North Korean defectors in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji.

They were waiting there to be secretly transported to South Korea for resettlement.

"The defendant raped the victim while she was in a difficult state due to risks like being arrested as a North Korean defector.

And he deserves a stern punishment for that," court records said.

The man, who defected from the North in September 2010, threatened the woman saying that the Chinese security police would arrest and send them back to the North if she yelled, according to the records. (Yonhap News)