The country's official Central News Agency reported the trial confirmed the crime the two female journalists committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing.
Holly Gibson, former co-worker of the two journalists, expressed surprise at the results of the sentence.
"My reaction is surprised that it's such a long sentence.
I'm actually not surprised there were sentenced.
My feeling was that they will be sentenced to kind of send a message to, probably other journalists, and the 12 years is difficult to hear, but I'm hoping that it's more symbolic than anything else and that maybe they'll be released within a matter of months.
" Seung-eun Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese American, were detained on March 17th and later accused of illegally intruding into North Korean territory with "hostile intent".
