 |
|
Report: 2 Americans illegally crossed into NKorea
[June 16, 2009] SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Two American journalists sentenced in Pyongyang last week to 12 years' hard labor were detained in North Korean territory after crossing into the country illegally, state-run media said Tuesday, providing the first details about the circumstances of their arrest.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee of Current TV were taken into custody on the North Korean banks of the Tumen River after crossing over from China illegally three months ago, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
|
The women, tried in North Korea's highest court earlier this month, "admitted and accepted" their punishment of 12 years' hard labor for committing politically motivated "criminal acts," the report said. "The accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts committed, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it," it said. The DPRK refers to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The women were detained March 17 at a time of rising tensions between the North and the United States over the communist nation's nuclear and missile programs. Weeks earlier, North Korea had announced its intention to send a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket -- a launch Washington called a cover for a test of a long-range missile designed to strike the U.S. North Korea went ahead with the rocket launch in early April, and in an increasingly brazen show of defiance, conducted a nuclear test on May 25 and fired off a series of short-range missile in the days before the journalists' June 4 trial. The women's families claim Lee, 36, and Ling, 32, had no intention of crossing into North Korea, and many feared they would become political pawns in any negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. The families have pleaded for leniency and their release on humanitarian grounds. The details about the case involving the two women working for a San Francisco-based media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore were released by state media just hours before President Barack Obama was to sit down at the White House with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. The two leaders, whose countries fought together against the North during the 1950-53 Korean War, are expected to discuss North Korea and make a strong show of unity at their summit Tuesday in Washington. |
