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North Korea sentences 2 U.S. reporters to 12 years in labor prison

Laura Ling and Euna Lee are convicted of a 'grave crime' against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea.

Associated Press
June 8, 2009

Seoul -- North Korea said its top court convicted two U.S. journalists today and sentenced them to 12 years in labor prison, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.

The Central Court tried American television reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee during proceedings that began Thursday and found them guilty of a "grave crime" against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

It said the court "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor." The report gave no other details.

Ling and Lee, who were working for San Francisco-based Current TV, cannot appeal because they were tried in North Korea's highest court, where decisions are final.

The circumstances surrounding the trial and the journalists' arrest March 17 on the China-North Korea border have been shrouded in secrecy, as is typical of the regime. The trial was not open to the public or foreign observers, including the Swedish Embassy, which looks after American interests in the absence of diplomatic relations.

U.S. officials and others working for the reporters' release have said they have no information about the defendants and even lacked independent confirmation about whether the trial had started.

There have been fears that Pyongyang is using the two women as bargaining chips in its standoff with South Korea and the United States, which are pushing for U.N. sanctions to punish it for its latest nuclear test and a series of missile tests.

The journalists were arrested as they were reporting about the trafficking of women in the region. It's unclear whether they strayed into North Korea or were grabbed by aggressive border guards who crossed into China.

The United States in a statement today urged their immediate release.

"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in the statement.

Former Vice President Al Gore, an owner of Current TV, had no comment, a spokeswoman said. Calls to Alanna Zahn, a spokeswoman for the journalists' families, went unanswered.

The sentences are much harsher than what many observers had expected.

Choi Eun-suk, a professor on North Korean legal affairs at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea, had speculated that the reporters would probably be sentenced to more than five years but less than 10 in a labor prison. Then the negotiations with the U.S. would begin, he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she was "incredibly concerned" about the plight of the two women. Clinton said she had spoken with foreign officials with influence in North Korea and explored the possibility of sending an envoy to Pyongyang.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, had predicted that Pyongyang would probably free the reporters and treat their release as a goodwill gesture that should be reciprocated with a special U.S. envoy visiting the isolated state.

An American who was tried in North Korea in 1996 was treated more leniently. Evan C. Hunziker, 26, apparently acting on a drunken dare, swam naked across a river into North Korea. He was accused of spying, detained for three months and freed after negotiations between the North Koreans and a special U.S. envoy.