TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to “12 years of reform through labor” on June 8 after a five-day trial on charges of illegal entry into North Korea and hostile acts, North Korea’s official news agency reported.
PYONGYANG: TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to “12 years of reform through labor” on June 8 after a five-day trial on charges of illegal entry into North Korea and hostile acts, North Korea’s official news agency reported.
They cannot appeal because they were tried in North Korea’s highest court where decisions are final, AP reported from Seoul. No observers were permitted at the trial, and the only outsider to visit them was the Swedish ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Pyongyang.
The two American reporters for Al Gore‘s California-based Current TV were arrested by North Korean soldiers March 17 on the Tumen River border with China. When arrested, Laura, 32, a Chinese-American, and Euna, 36, a Korean-American, were filming a story about North Koreans crossing into China.
Candlelight vigils were held in several U.S. cities on the evening before the trial. In the vigil at New York City’s Washington Square Park, OPC President Allan Dodds Frank told the crowd, “Any trial of Laura Ling and Euna Lee will be a confession of weakness by North Korea’s leaders that the country cannot bear any impartial scrutiny from the outside world.”