Americans tourists to face trial in North Korea

North Korea is preparing to charge two American detainees for carrying out what it says were hostile acts against the country.

Investigations into American tourists Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle concluded that suspicions about their hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their testimonies, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said.

KCNA said North Korea is making preparations to bring them before a court.

Both Americans were arrested earlier this year after entering the country as tourists.

Mr Fowle entered the county on April 29th and North Korea’s state media said in June that authorities were investigating him for committing acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit.

A spokesman for his family said the 56-year-old man from Ohio was not on a mission for his church.

KCNA said Mr Miller, 24, entered the country on April 10th with a tourist visa, but tore it up and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum.

North Korea has also been separately holding Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae since November 2012.

He is serving 15 years of hard labour for what the North says were hostile acts against the state.

The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, so Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, oversees consular issues for the US there.

The Korean Peninsula is still in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Missile tests

It was the latest in a flurry of events in the volatile region as Chinese President Xi Jinping visits South Korea this week, and comes a day after Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles, defying a UN ban on such tests.

The visit by the head of state of its closest ally to a country with which the North is still technically at war could raise tensions.

Japan has said it will respond to the missile test in cooperation with the United States and South Korea, but that it would not affect talks it is holding with the North this week on the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped by the reclusive state decades ago.

Jeffrey Fowle

Jeffrey Fowle, a 56-year-old street repairs worker from Miamisburg, Ohio, was arrested after entering North Korea as a tourist in late April.

A job application uncovered by the Dayton Daily News in Ohio said Mr Fowle described himself as honest, friendly, and dependable.

Earlier reports in the paper said Mr Fowle had previously travelled to Sarajevo, Bosnia and had a fascination with the former Soviet Union, which led him to look for a Russian bride, whom he later married.

“Jeffrey loves to travel and loves the adventure of experiencing different cultures and seeing new places,” said a statement from Fowle’s family lawyer, released earlier this month.

"Mrs Fowle and the children miss Jeffrey very much, and are anxious for his return home," the statement said.

Matthew Miller

Little is known about fellow US citizen Matthew Miller, who was taken into custody by North Korean officials after entering the country the same month whereupon he ripped up his tourist visa and demanded asylum, according to state media.

Mr Miller was travelling alone, said a statement from Uri Tours, the travel agency that took the 24 year-old to North Korea, published on their website.

A spokesman for the New Jersey-based travel agency said Mr Miller was in “good physical condition” and his parents were aware of the situation, but have chosen not to make any statement regarding their son’s arrest.

In May, the US State Department issued an advisory urging Americans not to travel to North Korea because of the "risk of arbitrary arrest and detention" even while holding valid visas.

Legal system

North Korea’s haphazard and inconsistent legal system makes it difficult to predict the outcome for the detained tourists.

It has detained and then released other Americans in the past year, including Korean War veteran Merrill Newman, whom it expelled last December after a month-long detention based on accusations of war crimes related to his service history.

Australian missionary John Short was arrested in February this year for leaving copies of bible verses at various tourist sites during his stay.

Short, 75, and Newman, 86, were released on account of their advanced age and health condition, state media said in the wake of published confessions from the two men.

Another US national, Kenneth Bae, a Christian missionary who had been arrested in November 2012, was convicted and sentenced by North Korea’s supreme court to 15 years hard labour last year.

Pyongyang has detained a number of US citizens in the past, using them to extract visits by high-profile figures, including former US President Bill Clinton, who in 2009 helped secure the release of two US journalists who had secretly entered the country by crossing into the country from China.

The journalists, Laura Ling and Korean-American Euna Lee, were released after being tried by a city court in Pyongyang and given a ten-year hard labour sentence.

But North Korea has twice cancelled visits by Robert King, the US special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, to discuss Bae's case.

Reuters/PA