A local professor says North Korea has softened penalties for anti-state offenses in revisions to its criminal law conducted earlier this spring.

Law professor Han In-seop at Seoul University said Friday during a forum that the North's rewritten criminal law had lowered the penalty for convicted terrorists from death to life sentence with hard labor.

Han said the North also lowered the penalty for sedition and subersive acts from the previous 7 year sentence to 5.

The professor said Pyongyang has been softening panalties for anti-state and anti-national crimes since the 1987 Criminal Law revision.