L.A. Journalist Freed From S. Korean Jail

Richard Choi, a Los Angeles radio journalist arrested Dec. 19 in South Korea, was released Wednesday from a Seoul jail but still faces criminal charges that he violated a Korean law prohibiting certain business news stories.

Choi, 49, a popular news anchor and talk show host for radio station KBLA-AM (1580), better known as Radio Korea, was set free at midnight Wednesday local time. He was released on his own recognizance. Korean authorities retained his U.S. passport.

“Coming out from jail, it was snowing here,” Choi said in a phone interview from a Seoul hotel. The falling flakes were so lovely, he said, that he thought to himself, “Wow, this is a beautiful world.”

Choi was jailed after a Dec. 15 broadcast to Los Angeles about a rumored merger between the Korea Times, which publishes a Los Angeles edition, and the Hyundai Group. In his report, he said South Korean media companies appear to have been hurt by the economic crisis there.

Four days later, he was arrested and charged with “false accusation,” a Korean law that bars reports that could be financially damaging to a firm. The law is akin to a charge of malicious slander.

If convicted, Choi reportedly faces up to five years in prison.

The case is due to go to trial in a matter of days or weeks, Choi said. He declined to comment on the case against him: “Later. That’s all I can say.”

Choi was arrested after the Korea Times filed a complaint against him, Korean officials have said. Editors at the paper’s Los Angeles edition could not be reached Wednesday night.

Last week, a Korea Times editor in Los Angeles said the company feared Choi’s broadcast could spark panic given South Korea’s current economic climate.

Radio Korea President Jang-hee Lee, 50, called Choi’s release a first step. Speaking from his Los Angeles office, he said Wednesday night, “We want the complete dismissal of the criminal charges.”

Choi’s arrest sparked an unusual show of solidarity between Korean American and African American leaders in Los Angeles. Often at odds in recent years, sometimes violently, Korean American and African American leaders have united in calls for Choi’s release.

Like Radio Korea President Lee, they pronounced themselves delighted Wednesday--but far from satisfied.

“They’ve done one part of it,” said Richard Elkins, California executive director of the Congress of Racial Equality. “We want to see them drop the charges.”

Elkins also said, “The way we see it, Richard Choi is an American journalist,” adding, “If we don’t stick up for each other, what is being American all about?” Some watchdog groups, meanwhile, have warned that Choi’s arrest might signal danger for journalists in Asia.

“It is our hope that the charges against Choi will be dropped and he will be allowed to resume his life in the United States,” A. Lin Neumann of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement released Wednesday. Neumann called Choi’s arrest a “direct breach of press freedom.”

In jail, Choi said, he was housed in a six-man cell with another American and men from Thailand, China, Iran and Russia. “The food was good,” he said, mostly sandwiches, sometimes noodle soup. “The treatment was OK.”

Nevertheless, he added, “I’m glad to be out of jail. So glad.”