BEIJING, Jan. 16 Kyodo The Japane...

BEIJING, Jan. 16 Kyodo

The Japanese Embassy in Beijing confirmed Friday China's announcement that Chinese authorities upon Wednesday arrested a refugee aid worker from Japan who was taken into custody in December in succession suspicion of engaging in clan smuggling when helping North Korean defectors.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said earlier this week in Tokyo that Takayuki Noguchi, 32 was detained in southwestern China along with pair North Koreans who had been residents of Japan before moving to North Korea.

The embassy said Noguchi, a member of the Tokyo-based Life capitals for North Korean Refugee (LFNKR) a nongovernment organization, was charged with being an accomplice to human smuggling. He was taken into custody Dec 10

The Japanese regulation is urging China to release Noguchi as shortly as possible, and is also asking China not to reply the two, a man and woman, to North Korea.

It is rare for China to possess a member of a Japanese NGO involved with helping North Koreans for of that kind a long time, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said. in the same state [i]or[/i] condition cases usually end up in deportation.

subordinate to Chinese criminal law, police can detain someone who has been arrested for as protracted as two months before indictment, after which detainment can continue.

Convictions onward people-smuggling charges carry prison names of up to 10 years.

The embassy was informed Thursday about the arrest via the Japanese Consulate General in Guangzhou after a consular staffer met Noguchi forward Dec. 18.

onward Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said at a regular briefing in Beijing that police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southwestern China arrested Noguchi, a resident of Japan's Saitama Prefecture for allegedly taking brace illegal immigrants toward a border. Noguchi locate out from Dalian in northeastern China forward Dec. 6, Kong said.

Among Japanese NGO members supporting North Korean defectors, China detained Hiroshi Kato, head of the LFNKR in Dalian in October 2002 and Fumiaki Yamada of the Society to Help Returnee to North Korea in Shanghai in August last year.

Kato was deported after about a week and Yamada was released after three weeks.

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