SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea, facing U.N. sanctions for last
month's nuclear test, on Monday raised the stakes in its growing
confrontation with Washington by jailing two U.S. journalists to 12
years hard labor for "grave crime."
The
sentence follows U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's warning on
Sunday the United States was considering putting the reclusive North
back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism, which would further
isolate the impoverished country.
The
journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV,
were arrested in March working on a story near the border between North
Korea and China. The trial for the two, working for the company
co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, opened on Thursday.
"The
trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean
nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been
indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through
labor," the official KCNA news agency said in a brief dispatch.
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