North Korea Sentences American

North Korea has just announced that is has sentenced an American prisoner to eight years of hard labor and ordered him to pay a $700,000 fine for illegally crossing the border into North Korea in January. Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an English teacher and human rights activist working in South Korea, is the fourth American to be charged with entering North Korea illegally this year. American authorities state that they are optimistic that Gomes will not have to actually serve the sentence he has been given, but will eventually be released. Gomes’s case is similar to those of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, as well as activist Robert Park, all of whom were caught on North Korean soil and given harsh punishments, but were eventually sent home safely. Colleagues of Gomes claim that it is likely that Gomes, a devout Christian, became interested in calling attention to North Korea’s human rights record by entering the country and getting himself arrested.

Since the United States does not maintain regular diplomatic relations with North Korea and does not keep an embassy there, members of the Swedish Embassy, which handles American issues in the nation, have been present at Gomes’s trial and are following developments, hoping to meet with Gomes and negotiate for his release. Many experts on North Korea believe that North Korea will attempt to use Gomes as a bargaining chip, just like it did with past American prisoners in North Korea like Ling and Lee, and is not intent on keeping Gomes for long, much less forcing him to serve his sentence.