2 journalists ‘home and free’ after North Korean pardon

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Two American journalists held captive in North Korea since March endured meals of rice with rocks, more than four months of isolation and the constant fear they would be sent to a gulag.

Facing sentences of 12 years’ hard labor, they were allowed only sporadic contact with each other, let alone the outside world. Then, suddenly this week, they were brought into a meeting with none other than former President Bill Clinton, who helped win their release and flew home with them for a tearful reunion with their families.

“We could feel your love all the way in North Korea,” an emotional Laura Ling said. “It is what kept us going in the darkest of hours, and it is what sustained our faith that we would come home.”

Ling and Euna Lee sobbed and embraced their husbands and Lee’s 4-year-old daughter, Hana, in the sleek hangar of a Burbank airport after a 91‚Ñ2-hour flight from Japan. It was the last stop after their release from North Korea after an unusual diplomatic rescue mission headed by the former president.

In a voice shaking with sobs, Ling recalled how their time in captivity came to an abrupt end after she and Lee were summoned to a meeting and found the former president standing there.

“We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end, and now we stand here, home and free,” she said.

Though questions swirled about the delicate negotiating dance that led to their release, Ling talked only about their gratitude to be free and their desire to quietly get reacquainted with their families.

Neither woman offered details of their treatment in North Korea, which has a reputation for a brutal government and has struggled through famine.

Family members found it challenging to hear the few details they have received, Ling’s sister, Lisa Ling, said.

She said the captives saw each other for only a couple of days after their detention.

“They actually were kept apart most of the time. ... On the day of their trial, they hugged each other, and that was it,” Lisa Ling said outside her sister’s home in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

Lisa Ling said her sister was craving fresh food, and a sushi dinner will be on the agenda soon.

“She’s really, really anxious to have fresh fruit and fresh food. ... There were rocks in her rice,” Lisa Ling said. “Obviously, it’s a country that has a lot of economic problems.”

They were held in a guest house and had not yet been sent to the labor camp because of medical concerns, the sister said. Laura Ling suffers from an ulcer, and Lee has lost 15 pounds since being detained. Ling had been seen regularly by a doctor, her sister said.

Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, are reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV. They had been working on a story about the trafficking of women when they were arrested in March and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. The two were granted a pardon Tuesday, after talks between Clinton and North Korea leader Kim Jong Il.

They arrived at Bob Hope Airport at dawn aboard a Boeing jet owned by Steve Bing, a multimillionaire film producer, friend of Clinton’s and contributor to Democratic causes.

Lee, who emerged first, wept and hugged her daughter, held her hands as she talked to her and then scooped her up. Both were crushed in an embrace from her husband, Michael Saldate.

Ling threw up her arms in joy before descending the plane’s stairs and embracing her husband.