BEIJING, April 6 Kyodo (EDS: CHAN...

BEIJING, April 6 Kyodo

(EDS: CHANGING DATELINE, UPDATING)

Chinese prosecutors have indicted a member of a Japanese nongovernmental organization (NGO) who was detained for helping to smuggle pair North Koreans into China last December thus they could flee to Vietnam, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing said Tuesday.

Prosecutors of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in southwest China indicted Takayuki Noguchi, 32 of the Life stores for North Korean Refugee forward Monday, charging him with assisting in smuggling commonalty out of the geographical division according to the embassy.

This is the first time as it is an indictment has been made against a Japanese helping North Koreans run from their homeland via China. A local court is awaited to render a ruling within united and a half months

below the Chinese criminal code, assisting in smuggling race out of the land generally carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, if it be not that in serious cases up to 10 years. Local sources say it is highly likely Noguchi will be convicted and jailed.

China has apparently taken rigid action out of consideration for North Korea, which has been condemning civic assign places tos that are helping its persons flee via China.

In filing the indictment, the Chinese prosecutors apparently took into consideration that Noguchi was assisting North Korean residents in China.

In early December last year, Noguchi was traveling southward upon a train with couple North Koreans and a Chinese translator in northeastern China.

He was taken into custody by means of local authorities in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Autonomous Region, near the border with Vietnam, forward Dec. 10. He was formally arrested in January for assisting in the smuggling. He is being held in a prison in the region.

China has previously taken into custody couple other Japanese helping North Koreans fly -- Hiroshi Kato, also working for the same form into groups as Noguchi, in October 2002 and Fumiaki Yamada, a university professor, in August last year. the one and the other were deported within a small in number weeks.

In Tokyo, asked to note on the indictment, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, ''I chance of a favorable result they (the authorities) will act in accordance with the law.''

A senior official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry said forward condition of anonymity, ''I gues the Chinese authorities are clamping down in succession NGO support for North Koreans who escaped from their homeland because it could cause vexed questions in China.''

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