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North Korea sentences 2 U.S. journalists to 12 years in jail
The nation's highest court gave each reporter 12 years of hard labor.
By John M. Glionna and Ju-min Park

11:15 PM PDT, June 7, 2009

Reporting from Daegu, South Korea — Two American television journalists on Monday were convicted of a "grave crime" against North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, a move that increased mounting tensions between the U.S. and the reclusive Asian state.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were sentenced by the top Central Court in Pyongyang in a brief two-day trial that started Friday as U.S. officials demanded the release of the two women.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the court "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor" but gave no further details.

Following Monday's verdict, U.S. officials reissued their call for North Korea to release the pair.

"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in the statement.

Ling and Lee were arrested March 17 along the China-North Korean border after top officials in Pyongyang said they encroached on North Korea soil while reporting a story on human trafficking by Kim Jong Il's regime. Housed separately in Pyongyang since their arrest, the women have reached out to family members in the U.S., who have in the last week made several public appeals calling for their release.

Japanese television has reported that Current TV founder Al Gore was prepared to fly to Pyongyang and secure the women's freedom, depending on the outcome of the trial. It was not known Monday how the guilty verdict might have affected those plans.

Many analysts speculate that North Korea, which has in recent months sought to publicly establish its nuclear capabilities -- conducting an underground nuclear test and launching several experimental missiles -- was trying to use the women as political pawns in an attempt to force Washington to sit down for one-on-one talks.

The women's trial was not open to the public.

Choi Choon-heum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the verdict was not surprising.

"It was beyond expectations, but no matter what they are doing, they have no choice but to release them in the end," he said. "Obviously it showed a strong will from the military as well. But there is nothing we worry about too much."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had over the weekend called for the women's release. Clinton said she has spoken with foreign officials with influence in North Korea and explored the possibility of sending an envoy to the North, but suggested that no one would be sent during the trial.

Many say political uncertainty in North Korea cast a pall over the trial. After suffering a debilitating stroke last year, strongman Kim Jong Il is reportedly looking to soon name a successor, rumored to be his youngest son. The possible power vacuum has created a subtle battle of ideologies as communist hard-liners seek to crush those in favor of social reforms and a more open policy toward the West.

After the March 17 arrest of the journalists, analysts say, the Obama administration had sought to quietly negotiate with North Korea. Officials were encouraged after Iran released U.S. journalist and accused spy Roxana Saberi after four months in jail.

In recent weeks, as the trial date got closer, state-run news in North Korea released condemnations of the women, alluding to their "confirmed crimes" and "illegally intruding into [North Korean] territory."

Experts believe the trial serves as a political litmus test. They say North Korea had an opportunity to distinguish the journalists' case from the political realm and temper an international image further damaged by the nuclear test.

But now those hopes have been cast into doubt with Monday's verdict.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the world will now wait to see how Pyongyang handles its prisoenrs. "Now that the results came out from the trial, the next step will be a political pardon and a diplomatic resolution," he said. "It's highly likely that Al Gore will visit Pyongyang as early as late this week."

Others thought the sentence was overly harsh.

"It sounds a pretty strong sentence," siad Kim Dong-han, a North Korean law expert at Dongguk University. "I had not thought that North Korea would have strongly punish them, but it seems that a political motive was factored into this case.

He said he thought the verdict may have been a North Korean retaliation for what it considered a [diplomatic] cold shoulder from the Obama administration.

"The U.S. needs to take some measures for their release as soon as possible through diplomatic channels."

What were the editors at Current TV thinking when they let those two kids pursue this story? Were they thinking?