North Korea Sentences Two US Journalists To 12 Years In Labor Prison

June 8, 2009 5:25 a.m. EST

Seoul, South Korea (AHN) - North Korea has sentenced two American journalists to 12 years in a labor prison as they were found guilty of illegally entering the region, three months after they were arrested, the state-run news agency said on Monday.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, were tried in the Central Court, North's highest court in Pyongyang, from June 4 to 8. They both were found guilty of "hostile acts" in the communist state.

The two female journalists were taken into custody by the North Korean guards on March 17 while filming near the Tumen River, which separates North Korea and China.

"The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing," the Korean Central News Agency reported, adding that they were sentenced to 12 years of reform through labor.

The state-media did not specify what the "grave crime" was during the verdict. The two journalists were investigating human rights abuses of North Korean women.

The U.S. government is "deeply concerned" by the reported sentencing of the two U.S. citizens and that they are trying all possible channels to have North Korea to free them, according to statement by spokesman Ian Kelly.

The U.S. and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, which has made it difficult for the top officials in Washington to pursue the authorities in Pyongyang for the journalists' release.

The U.S. State Department has indicated that the Swedish ambassador, who represents US to North Korea, has been in touch with the two journalists.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the charges against the women were "baseless" and called on the Communist state's leader, Kim Jong Il, to immediately release them.

Little is known about the labor camps in North Korea, but reports said that the convicts sentenced to labor prison are subject to harsh living and working conditions.

Cho Myung-chul, a former economics professor at Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung university who defected to the South in 1994 and now an analyst at a Seoul think tank told Japan's Yonhap News that the convicts are subject to hard work at farms, mines, construction sites or factories.

The U.S. State Department estimates that up to 200,000 prisoners are held in the camps, which are located in valleys in mountainous regions of the central and northern part of North Korea.

Lee, a Korean-American, and Ling, a Chinese-American, are employed by the U.S.'s online news outlet Current TV and were under investigation. The San Francisco-based online news agency is co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.