MOSCOW (Kyodo) -- A Japanese man has been sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 21,000 Belarusian rubles ($6,400) for espionage, the Eastern European nation's prosecutors said Monday.

The ruling handed down by a court in Minsk said Masatoshi Nakanishi was involved in spying activities from 2018 to 2024. He was detained in July last year for allegedly taking over 9,000 photos of the border area with Ukraine and sending them to his home country.

The ruling was given Friday, according to the Japanese consulate general in the country.

The first hearing of his trial was held as a closed-door session in January.

Nakanishi worked as a Japanese language teacher at an educational institution affiliated with a national university in Gomel, southeastern Belarus.

The allegation surfaced as a Belarusian state-run broadcaster reported in September that a Japanese man named Masatoshi Nakanishi was taken into custody on suspicion of involvement in espionage and admitted his wrongdoings.

Japan protested to Belarus on humanitarian grounds, criticizing the airing of such a program.