DPRK jails American reporters for 12 years

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-09 07:57

SEOUL: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) convicted two US journalists and sentenced them yesterday to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into its territory, intensifying the country's confrontation with the United States.

The Obama administration said it would pursue "all possible channels" to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former vice-president Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture.

There are fears Pyongyang is using the women as bargaining chips as the UN debates a new resolution to punish the country for its defiant May 25 atomic test and as the DPRK seeks to draw Washington into direct negotiations.

Washington's former UN ambassador Bill Richardson called the sentencing part of "a high-stakes poker game" being played by the DPRK. He said on NBC's Today show that he thinks negotiations for their "humanitarian release" can begin now that the legal process has been completed. Other Republic of Korea (ROK) analysts also said they expect the two to be freed following negotiations.

The journalists were found guilty of committing a "grave crime" against the DPRK and of illegally entering the country, the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

DPRK guards arrested Ling and Lee near the China-DPRK border on March 17. The two were reporting about the trafficking of DPRK women at the time of their arrest, and it's unclear if they strayed into the DPRK or were grabbed by border guards who crossed into China. A cameraman and their local guide escaped.

The Central Court in Pyongyang sentenced each to 12 years of "reform through labor" in a DPRK prison after a five-day trial, KCNA said in a terse, two-line report that provided no further details. A Korean-language version said they were convicted of "hostility toward the Korean people".

US 'deeply concerned'

Verdicts issued by the DPRK's highest court are final and cannot be appealed, said Choi Eun-suk, a DPRK law expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at the ROK's Kyungnam University. He said the DPRK's penal code calls for transferring them to prison within 10 days.

The United States, which does not have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, was "deeply concerned" about the reported verdict, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. He said officials would "engage in all possible channels" to win the reporters' release.

At the White House yesterday, deputy spokesman William Burton said in a statement: "The president is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean (DPRK) authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release."

The families of Lee, 36, and Ling, 32 had no immediate comment, spokeswoman Alanna Zahn said from New York. Gore also had no comment, spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said.

Lee is Korean-American and speaks Korean, but it is not clear how well. She lives in California with her husband and 4-year-old daughter Hannah. Ling is Chinese-American and a native of California. Her sister is National Geographic "Explorer" TV journalist Lisa Ling.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the 12-year sentence - the maximum allowed under DPRK law - may have been a reaction to recent "hard-line" threats by the US, including possible sanctions and putting the DPRK back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But he predicted the journalists' eventual release following diplomatic negotiations.

"The sentence doesn't mean much because the issue will be resolved diplomatically in the end," Kim said.

(China Daily 06/09/2009 page12)