N. Korea gives US citizen 15 years’ hard labour for ‘crimes’

North Korea sentenced US citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years of hard labour yesterday for what it said were crimes against the state, a move that will likely see him used as a bargaining chip in talks with Washington.

According to North Korean law, the punishment for hostile acts against the state is between five and 10 years’ hard labour

Bae, 44, was born in South Korea but is a naturalised American citizen and attended the University of Oregon. According to US media, he most recently lived in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood.

A North Korean defector said Bae will likely serve his sentence in a special facility for foreigners, not in one of the repressive state’s forced labour camps. More than 200,000 people are incarcerated in these camps, beaten and starved, sometimes to death, according to human rights groups.

Bae’s sentencing comes after two months of sabre-rattling by Pyongyang that saw North Korea threaten both the United States and South Korea with nuclear war.

Former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, who has made numerous trips to North Korea that included efforts to free detained Americans, in a statement said Bae’s case should not become entangled in the current US-North Korea impasse.

“Now that the sentencing and the N. Korean legal process has been completed, it is important negotiations begin to secure Kenneth Bae’s release on humanitarian grounds or a general amnesty,” said Richardson, who visited North Korea in January with Google Inc CEO Eric Schmidt.

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who has travelled to North Korea before to try to free a detained American, has no plans to do so for Bae, Carter’s spokeswoman said.

“President Carter has not had an invitation to visit North Korea and has no plans to visit,” Carter’s press secretary, Deanna Congileo, said in an e-mail.

Bae is believed to be a devout Christian, according to human rights activists in South Korea, who say he may have been arrested for taking pictures of starving children, known as ‘kotjebi’, or fluttering swallows.

He was part of a group of five tourists who visited the northeastern North Korean city of Rajin in November and has been held since then.

Some media reports have identified Bae as the leader of the tour group. NK News, a specialist North Korean news website, said he was the owner of a company called Nation Tours that specialised in tours of northeastern North Korea.