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N. Korea silent on two U.S. journalists put to trial
SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea remained silent Friday about two U.S. journalists involved in a high-profile trial at Pyongyang's top court a day earlier on charges of illegal entry and hostile acts.
Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency has yet to release the verdicts, although it sent an unusual dispatch Thursday saying the trial would begin at 3 p.m. that day at the Central Court.
Korean-American Euna Lee and Chinese-American Laura Ling, journalists from Current TV, a San Francisco-based Internet outlet co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, were detained near the North Korean border with China on March 17 while working on a story about North Korean defectors.
North Korean criminal law stipulates a maximum of 10 years in a labor camp for hostile activities or espionage. A ruling by the top court would be final, as it does not allow appeals, Seoul officials say.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said no observers were allowed at the trial. The Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang, Mats Foyer, who handles consular affairs involving American citizens in North Korea and met with the journalists three times each since their detention, was denied access to the trial, Kelly said.
It was not known whether the trial ended or is ongoing.
Washington did not rule out the possibility of Gore flying to North Korea to negotiate their release.
"This is such a sensitive issue, I'm just not going to go into those kinds of discussions that we may or may not have had," Kelly said Thursday (Washington time), when asked about Gore's possible trip to Pyongyang.
Negotiations have won releases in previous cases. Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico governor, flew to Pyongyang to win the release of Evan Hunziker, a U.S. citizen who was detained for three months in the North in 1996 after swimming across the river that borders China.
U.S. Army helicopter pilot Bobby Hall was released 13 days after his helicopter strayed into North Korea in 1994. The two cases did not involve trials.
North Korea has also been holding a South Korean citizen for months. The Hyundai Asan Corp. employee was detained at a joint industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong on March 30 for criticizing the North's political system and trying to incite the defection of a local female worker. The North has neither allowed access to him nor said how the case will be handled.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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