North Korea slammed Canada Tuesday for taking issue with the North's "fair" ruling over a Canadian pastor who has been sentenced to hard labor for life in the North.

Last week, North Korea's highest court sentenced Lim Hyeon-soo, a Korean-Canadian pastor, to life in prison, citing his "subversive plots" against the communist country.

Lim, 60, has been detained in the North since he entered the North via China on a humanitarian mission in late January. Canada has called for the North to release him, condemning the North's move.

North Korea expressed its resentment over Canada's call, saying the North passed "fair and square judgment" against the pastor.

"Now the Korean people are demanding heavier punishment on Lim, hardly repressing their indignation at his crimes," a spokesman at North Korea's foreign ministry was quoted by the Korean Central News Agency as saying.

The spokesman warned that North Korea's law will severely punish "whoever harbors hostile feelings toward the ideology and social system of the country and whoever is set to undermine them," according to the KCNA. (Yonhap)