KCNA releases details of American journalists' case

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PYONGYANG, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The official KCNA news agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) released a dispatch on Tuesday on the case of two female American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor by the supreme court early this month.

The dispatch said Laura Ling and Seung-Un Lee, journalists of the Los Angeles-based Current TV, "intruded" into Kangan-ri, Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province of the DPRK at dawn on March 17 and were arrested on the spot.

Their trial was held from June 4 to 8 at Pyongyang City Court after investigations, it said.

The report said that the suspects "admitted that what they did were criminal acts, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it."

The court sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor according to provisions of the DPRK's Criminal Code, the report said.

"We are following with a high degree of vigilance the attitude of the U.S. which spawned the criminal act against the DPRK," the report said.

File photo shows the two U.S. women reporters held by the DPRK.  (Xinhua/AFP Photo)