Still No Word on the Fate of Euna Lee and Laura Ling

You have to wonder why a court would take three days to announce its judgment on a charge as simple as illegal border crossing. Seriously, this isn’t international money laundering or a complex stock manipulation scheme. Did they cross the border or didn’t they? The issue becomes even simpler when the results are pre-ordained the the judicial procedure is, shall we say, streamlined:

[…] Venezuelan poet Ali Lameda described to the human rights group Amnesty International in a written report his experience in a North Korean court that sentenced him to 20 years in a labor camp in 1967. Lameda, a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party, said he was working as a translator in Pyongyang when he was accused of spying, sabotage and infiltration — allegations he denied.

No evidence, formal charges or specific allegations were presented during the one-day proceeding, he said. Instead, court officials repeatedly demanded that Lameda confess his guilt. A defense lawyer was assigned to him, but the attorney gave a long speech praising the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung before suggesting his client be sentenced to 20 years. Lameda was released after six years and left the country, he said. [AP]

Even so, the North Koreans still haven’t announced the result of their “trial.” Most of the speculation about why the North Koreans continue to prolong the agony of their families has to do with reasons other than enforcing North Korean law, arbitrary and eerily totalitarian as it may be:

The news blackout could mean the journalists — arrested three months ago on the China-North Korean border — were being used as bargaining chips. The North might be dragging out their trial as the communist leadership waits to see what kind of sanctions Washington and the U.N. will use to punish the nation for its latest nuclear blast and barrage of missile tests last week.

I swear, .

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Pyongyang will likely free the reporters and treat their release as a goodwill gesture that should be reciprocated with a special U.S. envoy visiting the isolated state.

“It shows how the North makes political judgments, which have nothing to do with laws,” Koh said. [AP]

Hillary Clinton has increased her calls for their release:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she was “incredibly concerned” about the plight of the two women. In working for their release, Clinton said she has spoken with foreign officials with influence in North Korea and explored the possibility of sending an envoy to the North, but suggested that no one would be sent during the trial. [AP]

“We want to strike the right balance between expressing our deep concerns, our belief that these two young women should be released immediately, the trial which is going on right now (that) we consider to be a step for the release and the return home of these two young women,” said Clinton. [AFP]

‘We call again on the North Korean government to release them and enable them to come home as soon as possible,” she told reporters after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. [Kyodo]