N'Korea Jails American For Six Years Over Hostile Acts

A North Korean court has sentenced an American man to six years of
hard labour for "hostile acts", the state-run KCNA news agency has
said.

Matthew Miller was arrested in April, shortly after arriving as a tourist.

The US accuses North Korea of using Miller and two other detained
Americans as pawns in a diplomatic game.

The North Korean authorities have not specified the charges against
Miller, but they claim he tore up his visa and demanded asylum.

During the trial, prosecutors said Miller admitted having a "wild
ambition" to spend time in a North Korean prison so he could find out
about the country's human rights situation, the Associated Press
reports.

Notes produced in court also suggested he had become a fugitive
because he was involved with Wikileaks, the organisation that has
leaked US state secrets.

Our correspondent in Seoul, Steve Evans, says it is impossible to know
how those notes were written - whether under duress or not - and it is
not clear whether there is any truth to the allegations.

After a 90-minute trial, the sentence was handed down and Miller was
handcuffed and led from the room, AP reports.
The White House has described securing the release of Miller and the
two other American citizens detained in North Korea as a "top
priority".

In the past the US has been able to negotiate the release of American detainees.

Notably two journalists who were held whilst filming a documentary in
North Korea were granted a "special pardon" after former President
Clinton travelled to the country.

The US has offered several times to send Robert King, its special
envoy for North Korean human rights issues, to Pyongyang to discuss
the detainees, but these visits have been cancelled by North Korea.

Miller, 24, of Bakersfield in California, had been in custody since April 10.

Little information has been released about him, and the US State
Department said this was partly because he had not signed a Privacy
Act Waiver, which allows information about him to be released to the
public.

According to KCNA, Miller tore up his tourist visa on arrival in the
country and shouted that "he came to the DPRK [North Korea] after
choosing it as a shelter."

In a brief interview with CNN earlier this month, attended by North
Korean officials, Miller said: "I will say that I prepared to violate
the law of the DPRK before coming here."

He also said he deliberately committed his "crime", although he did
not specify what he had done wrong.

Accordingly, much mystery remains, our correspondent says.

In a recent interview with Associated Press, all three American
detainees appealed to the US government to send a high-ranking
representative to negotiate about their freedom.