Two U.S. journalists, who were detained in North Korea while covering the plight of defectors living along the China-North Korea border, have been sentenced to 12 years hard labor in prison, the country's state-run media said Monday.
Demonstrators in South Korea last week hold pictures of Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
The Central Court of North Korea sentenced Laura Ling and Euna Lee for the "grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing," the Korean Central News Agency said.
As a result, the court sentenced the women to "12 years of reform through labor."
A U.S. State Department spokesman, Ian Kelley, said the Swedish ambassador in North Korea confirmed the sentence with North Korean authorities. Sweden represents U.S. interests in North Korea; the United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with North Korea.
"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," Kelley said in a statement. "We once again urge North Korea to grant the immediate release of the two American citizen journalists on humanitarian grounds."
White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said President Obama had been informed of the reports and was deeply concerned.
Ling and Lee were taken into custody March 17. They are reporters for California-based Current TV, a media venture of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
Several senior administration officials said the idea of sending either Gore or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Pyongyang on a mission to get the journalists released has been floated to the North Koreans.
No answer has come so far, but the expectation has been that once the trial ended, the North would accept a visit by either Gore or Richardson to secure the journalists' release.
Richardson served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary during the Clinton administration and has maintained contacts with North Korea. He took several trips there as ambassador, and he has worked for the release of people held by the North Koreans in the past.
Richardson was cautiously optimistic about the case on Monday.
"The sentence was harsh, but the good news in the sentence is it was not for espionage -- it was for entering illegally, hostile acts," he told CNN.
"The rhetoric of the North Koreans has not been terribly harsh against the two women," he added.
Both the Obama adminstration and Pyongyang have kept the case separate from the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, he said.
"That's an encouraging sign," he said.
"What needs to happen now is humanitarian negotations for the release of the two women," he said. "In my past negotiations with the North Koreans, you don't start negotiating for humanitarian release until after the North Korean legal process is over. It's over now, so the discussions have to start."
According to media reports, the trial began Thursday. Much of the time, the only news coming from the secretive and isolated communist nation is relayed through the state media.
The U.S. State Department was informed by the Swedish ambassador to North Korea that no observers were allowed in the courtroom
The State Department was notified the reporters had a defense attorney, but was not given the lawyer's name.
North Korea had charged the reporters with illegal entry into the country and spying. The Korean Central News Agency did not mention the spying charges on Monday.
The women's families broke months of silence last week, making public pleas for their release.
"When the girls left the United States, they never intended to cross into North Korean soil. And if they did at any point, we apologize," Ling's sister, Lisa, a special correspondent for CNN, said last week.
Contact with the women has been extremely limited.
The Swedish ambassador was allowed to see them three times.
Despite the limited communication, the families said they'd heard enough to know the women were "terrified" and "extremely scared."
