North Korea Plans to Put 2 American Tourists on Trial

Two of the three Americans currently being detained in North Korea are facing prosecution. Matthew Miller, 24, and Jeffrey Fowle, 56, will be indicted; a trial could result in long jail sentences for both. The third US citizen detained in the country, 45-year-old Kenneth Bae, is currently serving a 15-year sentence. Miller and Fowle were both arrested earlier this year on separate tourist trips to the country, USA Today reports. "Their hostile acts were confirmed by evidence and their own testimonies," says the state news agency, according to Reuters.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, North Korea has recently released two other foreigners—American Merrill Newman and Australian John Short—and it's possible Pyongyang plans to find Miller and Fowle guilty, extract confessions from them as it did from Newman and Short, and then release them. No trial date has been announced. News of the indictment comes a day after North Korea fired two missiles into its eastern waters in defiance of a UN ban. (More Matthew Miller stories.)