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North Korea to hold trial for U.S. detainee on Sept. 14

September 8, 2014
Matthew Miller, one of three American citizens currently detained in the North. will be put on trial on Sept. 14.

Matthew Miller, one of three American citizens currently detained in the North. will be put on trial on Sept. 14.

North Korea will hold a trial next Sunday for a U.S. citizen detained for alleged misbehavior, the communist country’s official media said Sunday.

“The Supreme Court of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea decided to judge American Miller Matthew Todd now in custody on September 14, according to the indictment of a relevant institution,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch, monitored in Seoul.

The announcement is seen as the latest indication that North Korea wants to use the case as leverage to reopen dialogue with the United States.

North Korea announced the arrest of 24-year-old Miller in April, accusing him of tearing up his tourist visa and seeking asylum upon entry.

Miller is one of three American citizens currently detained in the North.

In an interview with the U.S. cable news channel CNN earlier this month, all three men, including Kenneth Bae and Jeffrey Edward Fowle, called on Washington to send an envoy to the North to help bring them home.

Bae, a 45-year-old Korean-American Christian missionary, was detained in North Korea in November 2012 for unspecified anti-state crimes. He has been serving 15 years of hard labor after being convicted of the charges last year.

In June, the North announced it was holding Fowle, saying he entered the country as a tourist on April 29 and violated the country’s law, “contrary to the purpose of tourism during his stay.” Fowle was accused of leaving a Bible in a hotel. (Yonhap)

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