Pyongyang tries 2 US journalists amid calls for clemency

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-05 08:09

File photo shows the two US women reporters held by the DPRK. [Xinhua]

SEOUL: The DPRK's top court began hearing the case Thursday of two American journalists accused of crossing into the country illegally and engaging in "hostile acts" - charges that could draw a 10-year sentence in a labor camp.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former US vice-president Al Gore's California-based Current TV, were arrested on March 17 near the DPRK border while on a reporting trip to China.

The DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch earlier yesterday that the trial would begin at 3 pm (2 pm Beijing time) in Pyongyang's Central Court. Hours later, there was no word on the status of the proceedings.

The trial began at a time of mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula following Pyongyang's May 25 nuclear test.

Analyst Choi Eun-suk, a professor of DPRK law at Kyungnam University, said the court could convict the women and then the government could use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the US.

"The North is likely to release and deport them to the US - if negotiations with the US go well," Choi said.

Back home, the reporters' families pleaded for clemency.

"All we can do is hope the North Korean government will show leniency," Ling's sister, TV journalist Lisa Ling, said in an emotional plea at a California vigil on Wednesday night. "If at any point they committed a transgression, then our families are deeply, deeply sorry. We know the girls are sorry as well."

She urged Washington and Pyongyang not to let politics dictate the reporters' fate.

"Tensions are so heated, and the girls are essentially in the midst of this nuclear standoff," she said on CNN's "Larry King Live." She urged the governments to "try to communicate, to try and bring our situation to a resolution on humanitarian grounds - to separate the issues."

State-run media have not defined the exact charges against them, but ROK legal experts said conviction for "hostility" or espionage could mean five to 10 years in a labor camp. Choi said a ruling by the top court would be final.