North Korea jails two US journalists for 12 years

NORTH KOREA has convicted two American journalists and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labour for crossing into its territory, intensifying the reclusive nation’s confrontation with the US.

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 North Korea 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 North Korea.

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 South Korean analysts also said they expect the two to be freed following negotiations.

The journalists were found guilty of committing a “grave crime” against North Korea and of illegally entering the country, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

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

The Central Court in Pyongyang sentenced each journalist to 12 years of “reform through labour” in a North Korean 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.”

The ruling – nearly three months after their arrest on March 17 – comes amid soaring tensions fuelled by North Korea’s nuclear test last month and signs it is preparing for a long-range missile test.

Yesterday North Korea warned fishing boats to stay away from the east coast, Japan’s coast guard said, raising concerns more missile tests are being planned.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama used strong language on North Korea’s nuclear stance and said his administration did not intend “to continue a policy of rewarding provocation”.

Verdicts issued by North Korea’s highest court are final and cannot be appealed, said Choi Eun-suk, a North Korean law expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at South Korea’s Kyungnam University.

The United States was “deeply concerned” about the reported verdict, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington.