North Korea said Sunday it had sentenced detained American Matthew Miller to six years of hard labor for “hostile” acts against Pyongyang.
“He committed acts hostile to the (North) while entering the territory of the (North) under the guise of a tourist last April,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a statement.
Miller, 24, of Bakersfield, California, was detained in April for violating his tourist status when he entered the country.
He is believed to have torn up his visa at Pyongyang’s airport and demanded asylum.
A trial is also expected soon for Jeffrey Fowle, 56, who entered the North as a tourist but was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a provincial club. A third American, Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, is serving out a 15-year sentence for alleged “hostile acts.”
In an earlier interview with the Associated Press, Miller and the other men called for Washington to send a high-ranking U.S. representative to make a direct appeal for their freedom.
The U.S. has repeatedly offered to send its envoy for North Korean human rights issues, Robert King, to Pyongyang to seek a pardon for Bae and other U.S. detainees, but without success.
(From news reports)
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