2 US citizens to be tried in North Korea

North Korean officials say they will try two US tourists for committing crimes against the Asian country, the official KCNA news agency reported.

North Korea arrested Jeffrey Fowle earlier this month, the third man currently detained in the country. The two others include a 24-year-old American citizen identified as Miller Matthew Todd, arrested in April and a Korean-American citizen Kenneth Bae, who had been in custody in North Korea since November 2012.

The KCNA said Monday that the country will put on trial Fowle and Miller. “Their hostile acts were confirmed by evidence and their own testimonies.”

On June 6, the KCNA said “US citizen (Fowle is) in custody for committing anti-DPRK (North Korea) hostile activities. It added, “The US citizen, who entered the DPRK on April 29 as a tourist, engaged in activities that were in breach of DPRK’s laws.”

Pyongyang said earlier this month that a forthcoming US film which shows CIA agents attempt to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a “blatant act of terrorism.”

“Making and releasing a movie on a plot to hurt our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated,” said a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman as quoted by the KCNA.

The spokesman said the “reckless US provocative insanity” to produce such a movie would trigger “a gust of hatred and rage” among North Korean people.

The Hollywood movie The Interview, which is scheduled for release in October this fall, is about a talkshow host and his producer who are invited to interview Kim Jong-un but are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate him.