Kim Jong-il issued a special pardon to American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee and ordered their immediate release on August 4 shortly after the North Korean leader met with Bill Clinton. The former U.S. president flew to Pyongyang on an unannounced mission to seek the release of the two women, who were arrested by North Korean soldiers March 17.
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| Laura Ling and Euna Lee stepping off the plane in the United States. Video of their return on the BBC.co.uk |
Kim Jong-il issued a special pardon to American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee and ordered their immediate release on August 4 shortly after the North Korean leader met with Bill Clinton.
The former U.S. president flew to Pyongyang on an unannounced mission to seek the release of the two women, who were arrested by North Korean soldiers March 17 for crossing the border into North Korea and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp.
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| Laura Ling thanks Clinton team. |
Shortly after Kim’s order was announced, Ling and Lee boarded Clinton’s plane and returned to the United States. The White House said Clinton’s mission was a private mission, not a government one. Laura and Euna work for the San Francisco-based Current TV, co-founded by Al Gore, Clinton’s vice president.
In North Korea, Clinton was accorded honors reserved for heads of state. Senior officials, led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, met his private unmarked plane when it arrived August 4. Clinton exchanged handshakes with officials and accepted a bouquet of flowers from a schoolgirl. Kim later hosted a banquet for Clinton at the state guesthouse.
The OPC wrote numerous letters on the journalist’s behalf insisting on their release and OPC President Allan Dodds Frank addressed a candlelight vigil before their sentencing in early June.
The women admitted during their trial that they crossed into North Korea illegally, the state-run Korea Central New Agency said. In a June 16 dispatch, the Agency wrote, “During their trial, they admitted that what they did was a criminal act inspired by political motives of isolating and stifling our republic by defiling our human rights situation through fabricated video footage.”
Ling, 36, and Lee, 32, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor June 8 on charges they crossed the shallow Tumen River from China into North Korea. Given courtroom interpreters, Ling was defended by a lawyer, but Lee gave up her right to hire an attorney.
From North Korea on July 7, a month after their sentencing, Laura telephoned her sister, Lisa Ling, correspondent for the National Geographic’s TV channel, to plead for diplomatic intervention to save her and Euna from a labor camp. Lisa said her sister during her 20-minute call “was very specific about the message that she was communicating, and she said, ‘Look, we violated North Korean law and we need our government to help us. We are sorry about everything that has happened, but we need diplomacy.’”
Han Park, a University of Georgia political scientist, visited North Korea and was quoted In a July 11 AP dispatch from Seoul saying that Pyongyang is “seriously interested” in freeing the two women if the U.S. acknowledge their “hostile acts.” Lee and Ling’s sentences were not carried out, and they were held at a guesthouse in Pyongyang, Park said.
The women admitted during their trial that they crossed into North Korea illegally, the state-run Korea Central New Agency said. In a June 16 dispatch, the Agency wrote, “During their trial, they admitted that what they did was a criminal act inspired by political motives of isolating and stifling our republic by defiling our human rights situation through fabricated video footage.”