Takayuki Noguchi

The Intermediate People's Court in Chongzuo said Takayuki Noguchi, 32, will be deported after the prison term ends. It also fined him ¥260,000.

It is the first time that a Japanese national has been indicted and convicted in connection with assisting North Koreans fleeing their country.

Noguchi was arrested Dec. 10 near the Vietnamese border in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, when he was with two North Koreans who were previously residents of Japan.

Noguchi, who belongs to the Japanese nongovernmental organization Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, was charged with assisting in smuggling people out of China. The group's secretary-general, Hiroshi Kato, was detained by Chinese authorities for a week from late October to early November 2002 before being deported.

The fate of the two asylum-seekers, who had been abducted from Japan years before and taken to North Korea, is unknown. Chinese authorities released Noguchi's translator, a 29-year-old Chinese-Korean woman, in January.

The Japan Times Weekly: July 3, 2004
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