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NKorea jails US journalists for 12 years

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 SEOUL: North Korea sentenced two female US journalists to 12 years in a labour camp Monday for illegal entry and an unspecified "grave crime," further fuelling tensions with Washington after testing a nuclear bomb. US President Barack Obama was "deeply concerned" about the sentences handed down to Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and his government was using "all possible channels" to obtain their release, the White House said. A five-day trial "confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing," the official Korean Central News Agency said, without explaining the crime. The Central Court "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday the charges against the pair were baseless and they should be allowed to return home. Clinton also said the United States was considering putting North Korea back on its terrorism blacklist following its recent nuclear and missile tests. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Monday called for the pair's release. "We think that the government in North Korea should release them on humanitarian grounds," he told reporters.

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