[Enlarge]via Lisa Ling
“Arrirang”: Waiting on Pyongyang
June 4, 2009
- Update (06/04/09, 1 p.m. Pacific) CNN—Observers have been barred from a trial for two American journalists who were detained while covering the plight of North Korean defectors living along the China-North Korea border, a U.S. State Department spokesman said quoting Swedish Ambassador to North Korea Mats Foyer.
NKorea Aware of Int’l Interest About Trial
June 4, 2009
SEOUL—Kim Jong-il’s North Korean regime is aware of the international interest in the trial of two U.S. reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Unconfirmed reports from South Korea say the trial has been underway in Pyongyang for about two hours.
South Korea’s government-run Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) reported that it is “extremely rare” for the North to confirm the start time of any trial as it did approximately 10 minutes before start of Thursday’s trial via the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) Web site.
“The country is being very careful in dealing with the two U.S. citizens and is aware of international attention and the implications of the case,” Park Jeong-woo, a law professor at Kookmin University and an expert in the North’s legal system, told Reuters.
Quoting unnamed experts, The New York Times reported this morning that a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.
Donald Kirk of The Christian Science Monitor wrote: While the court will almost certainly find both Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee guilty, probably of espionage charges, predictions as to the sentence range from years of hard labor to probation and suspension of jail time before they go home.
The two have been held in what’s described as a “state guest house” near Pyongyang for nearly three months. They have received three visits by a Swedish diplomat representing US interests in North Korea in the absence of relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
