Accused US deserter and family arrive in Japan

A former US soldier accused of deserting to North Korea 39 years ago arrived in Japan with his wife and two North Korean-born daughters yesterday after flying from Indonesia to face an uncertain fate.

The United States has said it will request custody of Charles Robert Jenkins, a 64-year-old former US army sergeant, over the desertion charges. But, in what may be a tacit agreement to avoid a row with key ally Japan, it might delay doing so while he undergoes medical treatment.

Mr Jenkins was reunited last week with his Japanese wife Hitomi Soga and their two daughters, 21-year-old Mika and Belinda, 18, in Indonesia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Mr Jenkins, who underwent a stomach operation in North Korea earlier this year, went straight to hospital after arriving at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a chartered Boeing 777.

US Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker said on Saturday Washington was sympathetic to Mr Jenkins's health problems and that this "may delay our request for his transfer to US custody". He added that there were no plans for US officials to see Mr Jenkins in the immediate future.

But he repeated the US view that Mr Jenkins had deserted, adding: "The US government has the right to request custody... and will do so at the appropriate time."

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said it was still too early to predict what might happen.

"Jenkins needs medical treatment," he told Japanese television. "Until that happens, nothing else can happen." Using a cane, Mr Jenkins walked laboriously down stairs from the airplane to a waiting bus. Ms Soga looked concerned as she walked at his side.

"Welcome home!" a crowd of waiting journalists shouted. Their daughters smiled shyly as they followed behind. They had swapped the red North Korean badges they wore since leaving North Korea on July 9 for blue ribbons, symbols of the several Japanese abducted by North Korea and their supporters.

Ms Soga's story has captured the hearts of many Japanese. "The quiet time we spent together in Indonesia allowed us to talk extensively, and we decided to return to Japan as a family," she said in a statement issued earlier yesterday.

"Now we have finally come home," Ms Soga was quoted by Japanese official Kyoko Nakayama as saying after their arrival.

Mr Jenkins, originally from North Carolina, met and married Ms Soga in North Korea after she was kidnapped by Pyongyang agents in 1978. She was repatriated along with four other Japanese abductees in 2002 but had to leave her family behind.

Japanese officials say Mr Jenkins has not recovered from a stomach operation in North Korea and might have a serious illness requiring further surgery.

Mr Jenkins looked relatively fit when he arrived in Indonesia, but in recent public appearances, including his departure from the five-star Jakarta hotel where the family stayed, he has used a cane and walks with a limp.

Mr Jenkins was a 24-year-old army sergeant on a night patrol near the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea in 1965 when he left his men to check a noise. He surfaced in the North where the United States says he was part of the Stalinist state's propaganda machine.