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DPRK: US journalists admitted illegal crossing

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-17 09:48

SEOUL/TOKYO: Two US journalists sentenced by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) last week to 12 years of hard labor for politically motivated acts were caught filming their illegal crossing into the country, state-run media said Tuesday, providing the first details of their arrest.

Journalists Euna Lee (L) and Laura Ling of the US media outlet Current TV are seen in this undated handout. [Agencies]

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The reporting team from Current TV crossed the frozen Tumen River dividing the DPRK and China three months ago and walked up the river bank - all the while recording their transgression, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

"We've just entered a North Korean (DPRK) courtyard without permission," the Korean translation of their narration on the videotape said, according to KCNA. One of them picked up and pocketed a stone as a memento of the illegal move, the report said.

Two women - reporter Laura Ling and editor Euna Lee - were arrested in Kangan-ri in North Hamgyong Province, the report said. A third person, Current TV executive producer Mitch Koss, and their Korean-Chinese guide managed to flee, KCNA said.

Last Monday, Lee and Ling were sentenced in the DPRK's top court to 12 years of hard labor for what KCNA called politically motivated crimes. They were accused of crossing into the DPRK to capture video for a "smear campaign" focused on human rights, 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 women were detained on March 17 at a time of rising tensions between the DPRK and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. Weeks earlier, the DPRK 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 US.

The DPRK 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 missiles in the days before the journalists' trial.

The women's families claim Lee, 36, and Ling, 32, had no intention of crossing into the DPRK, and many feared they would become political pawns in any negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. The families have pleaded for leniency and urged their release on humanitarian grounds.

Japan tightens sanctions

Japan said Tuesday it would impose fresh sanctions on the DPRK, including what media said would be a ban on all exports to it, in response to the nuclear test on May 25.

The UN Security Council last Friday approved wider sanctions against Pyongyang that included a ban on all weapons exports from the DPRK and most arms imports into the country.

The impact of the new sanctions is seen as limited, with Japan's exports to the DPRK's broken-down economy already small and all imports from the DPRK already banned as part of previous sanctions.

Japanese exports to the DPRK have been shrinking since late 2006, when Japan banned DPRK ships from entering its ports and cut exports of luxury items to it.

The exports totaled 800 million yen ($8.26 million) last year, down almost 85 percent from 2006, according to government data.

AP - Reuters