North Korea sentences US citizen to six years labor

SEOUL - Agence France-Presse

Mathew Miller, an American detained in North Korea, spoke to the Associated Press on Sept 1. He has been sentenced to six years of hard labor. AP Photo

North Korea has said it had sentenced detained American Matthew Miller to six years’ hard labour for “hostile” acts against Pyongyang.

 The sentence came some two weeks after Miller and two other detained Americans made a highly unusual televised plea to Washington to negotiate their release.         

The North’s Supreme Court passed the sentence on Miller in a trial yesterday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a terse one-paragraph report.         

“He committed acts hostile to the (North) while entering the territory of the (North) under the guise of a tourist last April,” it said without elaborating.         

Miller was arrested in April after he allegedly ripped up his visa at immigration and demanded asylum.
He has been held in the North along with two other Americans, Kenneth Bae and Jeffrey Fowle.          

The verdict came a week after the North set Miller’s trial date and some two weeks after a plea for help from Miller, Kenneth Bae and Jeffrey Fowle.

In a televised interview with CNN in Pyongyang, the three men pleaded for the US government to help them.

“My situation is very urgent,” Miller said in the Sept. 1 interview.

“I think this interview is my final chance to push the American government into helping me,” he added.