CAMP ZAMA, Japan, Sept 11 (AFP) - A man accused of deserting the US army for North Korea nearly four decades ago turned himself over to the US military Saturday, in a step toward his possible resettlement in Japan.
Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, entered Camp Zama, the headquarters of the US army in Japan, at about 10:50 (0150 GMT) with his Japanese wife Hitomi Soga and their two daughters, according to witnesses.
Jenkins left a Tokyo hospital in the morning where he had been hospitalised since arriving in Japan on July 18 from North Korea via Indonesia. He underwent treatment for complications arising from prostate surgery in Pyongyang.
He was expected to seek a plea bargain for a dishonorable discharge from the US army.
US army spokesman Major John Amberg said that Jenkins was again under US military control, after turning himself in.
Jenkins stood at attention with a hand salute as he was met by Provost Marshall Lieutenant Colonel Paul Nigara. He was followed into Nigara's the office with his wife and daughters.
Washington says Jenkins defected to North Korea in 1965 while serving in South Korea near the border with the Stalinist North. His family in the United States insists he was kidnapped while on patrol and subsequently brainwashed.
Jenkins, who was a sergeant before his disappearance, was "re-established on the military payroll" and was to get his army uniform and ID card, the spokesman said. He was also expected to get a regulation hair cut eventually.
Soga and daughters, Mika and Brinda, were due to stay at the base, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the west, while a preliminary hearing is under way.
Jenkins said in a statement earlier this month that he would go to the camp to "begin the process that will bring closure to my pending legal situation."
His wife, 45, was abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 from the Japanese island of Sado and married Jenkins in 1980.
She was allowed to return home in 2002 with four other Japanese kidnap victims when Pyongyang admitted for the first time to abducting Japanese nationals to use them for training spies.
Soga, an apprentice nurse when she was kidnapped, has been preparing for her husband and daughters to move to be with her on the rural island of Sado in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), some 250 kilometers (160 miles) north of Tokyo.
Jenkins has already met US military lawyer James D. Culp, who is due to act on behalf of the army sergeant as defence counsel and work independently of the American forces' command.
Jenkins has been slapped with four charges, including desertion -- which carries a maximum life term -- aiding the enemy, encouraging disloyalty and inciting others to desert for appearing in North Korean propaganda films.
The military authorities will decide whether to court-martial Jenkins following an initial investigation, according to an army press release. He can apply for a "pre-trial agreement," or a plea bargain, to limit his sentence.
He is likely to be spared imprisonment, reports said, adding that a possible solution would be a dishonorable discharge.