North Korea put two US journalists on trial yesterday on charges of illegally entering the state with “hostile intent”, in a case that could worsen tensions with the US after Pyongyang’s nuclear test last week.
The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of US media outlet Current TV, were arrested in March near the border between China and North Korea while working on a story. The TV network was co-founded by former US vice-president Al Gore.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency said in a brief dispatch that the trial would begin at 0600 GMT (3pm local time) at one of the country’s highest courts.
Experts say the pair could face a sentence of 10 years or more of hard labour. They add a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.
Analysts said the two had become bargaining chips in high-stakes negotiations with the US, which has long sought to end the North’s nuclear ambitions.
“The country is being very careful in dealing with the two US citizens and is aware of international attention and the implications of the case,” said Park Jeong-woo, a law professor at Kookmin University and an expert in North Korea’s legal system.
In a separate incident that increased tensions with its neighbour, a North Korean patrol boat briefly crossed a disputed maritime border with South Korea but retreated after a warning, the Yonhap news agency quoted the South’s office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying.
North Korea also appears ready to raise tension through tests of a long-range missile that could reach US territory and of mid-range missiles that can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan. North Korea was punished by the UN for an April rocket launch, seen as a disguised missile test.
Deputy US secretary of state James Steinberg said after meeting South Korean president Lee Myung-bak that Washington would not repeat a previous mistake of rewarding the North with negotiations for making provocations. Pyongyang also needed to realise that China, the closest North Korea can claim as a major ally, had been shifting from its previous reluctance to join international censure of the North’s nuclear and missile tests, Mr Steinberg said in comments provided by Mr Lee’s office.
Little has been heard of the two journalists since their arrest, but they were seen last month by Sweden’s ambassador to Pyongyang on behalf of Washington, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea. “When I first got here, I cried so much. Now, I cry less,” Ms Ling was quoted as saying in a letter sent to her sister in May.
Human rights groups have said jails in impoverished North Korea are brutal, with torture common and prisoners often being killed through malnutrition and abuse. – (Reuters)