CAMP ZAMA, Japan (AFP) - US soldier Charles Jenkins pleaded guilty to deserting to North Korea in 1965, in the final act of a Cold War drama that began with his disappearance on a patrol four decades ago.
Jenkins, a 64-year-old who gave himself up at this US base near Tokyo in September, pleaded guilty at a court martial to desertion and aiding the enemy, defense counsel Captain James Culp said.
The guilty plea had been widely expected as the US military has indicated it will be lenient with Jenkins, who in theory could face the death penalty, as his case has aroused deep sympathy in close US ally Japan.
Jenkins could agree to pass on details about North Korea to the United States and could reveal how he vanished one chilly night on patrol in South Korea in January 1965 and how he spent the next 39 years.
Jenkins taught English in Pyongyang and allegedly became part of the North Korean propaganda machine, playing an American villain in films.
Since turning himself in to the US Army, Jenkins has worked in an administrative job at Camp Zama, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Tokyo, where he has been living with his two daughters and Japanese wife, who was abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s.
The politically sensitive case has drawn an outpouring of emotion in Japan, because his wife Hitomi Soga, 45, wants Jenkins to settle in Japan with her and their North Korean-born children Mika, 21, and Brinda, 19.
Soga returned to Japan in 2002 and was reunited with Jenkins and her daughters in Indonesia in July after a summit between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.
Washington has pressed to try Jenkins, while Tokyo has repeatedly asked for leniency.
There were 2,491 US soldiers wanted for desertion listed on the FBI's National Crime Information Center database as of May, with 1,076 new cases added from October 2003 to March this year, Amberg said.
11/03/2004 - 02:14 GMT - AFP