The lawyer for a Korean-American man jailed for leaking classified information on North Korea has strongly accused the U.S. Justice Department of a "profound double standard" after the department recommended only a misdemeanor conviction for a former CIA director charged with a similar offense.



Abbe David Lowell, the attorney for Stephen Kim, a former State Department contractor, demanded that the Justice Department immediately release Kim, saying his client should have also been offered a misdemeanor conviction just as former CIA Director David Petraeus was given.



Kim, 46, an arms expert, was sentenced in April last year to 13 months in prison for passing information about the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test to a Fox News reporter in 2009. Kim began serving the prison term in July and is scheduled to be released in August.



Supporters of Kim have claimed that the information Kim passed to the reporter is not highly sensitive or based on concrete intelligence, but just common-sense information that anyone could discern.



On the other hand, Petraeus was accused of giving classified materials to Paula Broadwell, his mistress and biographer, while he held the top job at the CIA, but the Justice Department decided to permit him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.



Petraeus was also charged with giving Broadwell several notebooks that contained highly classified information he had compiled during his time as a top general, including the identities of covert officers, war strategy and intelligence capabilities.



The Justice Department announced that Petraeus had signed a plea agreement that would allow him to avoid a trial and potential jail time by entering a guilty plea. Petraeus and the Justice Department jointly requested a sentence of two years' probation and a $40,000 fine.



"The decision ... demonstrates more clearly than ever the profound double standard that applies when prosecuting so-called 'leakers' and those accused of disclosing classified information for their own purposes," the lawyer said in a letter to the department.



Lower-level employees like Kim are prosecuted because they are "easy targets and lack the resources and political connections to fight back," while high-level officials leak classified information to forward their own agendas with virtual impunity, he said.



The lawyer emphasized that the infractions involving Kim and Petraeus are basically the same. Though the department cited Kim's motive and lying to the FBI as reasons to deny him a misdemeanor, Petraeus has also admitted to lying about his conduct to the FBI, he said.



"It is too late for us to undo the plea and seek the misdemeanor that Mr. Kim should have been offered," Abbe said. "However, some justice and fairness can occur, even at this late date, by our at least joining to end his incarceration now."



Kim's case was viewed as a test of the Barack Obama administration's handling of espionage issues. Critics argued that severe punishment against Kim will damage press freedom, claiming that the leaked information was not directly associated with national security or the well-being of Americans.



Before going to prison, Kim said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency last summer that four years of legal battles with the state devastated his life. Kim said he exhausted the life savings of his parents, his sister and his own, and the case dealt a critical blow to his reputation and did deep social and personal damage to his family. (Yonhap)