In a landmark judgment against the nation of North Korea, the family of an American missionary who was kidnapped and killed by North Korean agents has been awarded $330 million.

Rev. Kim Dong-Shik, who had been taken by North Korean agents while he was in China, was taken in January 2000 and tortured to death in a prison camp in North Korea.   Kim was born in South Korea but a permanent resident of the United States.  He had been working as a missionary providing humanitarian aid and religious council to Christians who had fled North Korea at the time of his kidnapping.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia awarded $15 million to Kim’s son and brother along with $300 million in punitive damages.

“This is an important human rights decision that will be utilized in all political abduction cases going forward,” Israel Law Center head Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told The Christian Post.

The court ruled that when a foreign regime abducts an individual, it is the responsibility of the abductors to prove that the person has not been murdered.

“We are grateful that the court has found that once we proved the kidnapping of Rev. Kim by North Korean intelligence and brought human rights experts to testify about the horrific conditions in the political detention camps, the burden must be on Pyongyang to show was still alive after so many years,” Darshan-Leitner said.

Christian watchdog groups say around 100,000 Christians are being tortured and forced into hard labor at North Korean prison camps.