TOKYO, July 26 (UPI) -- A former U.S. army sergeant accused of deserting his troop is expected to meet with a U.S. military lawyer this week, Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said Monday.
Charles Jenkins is accused of defecting to North Korea in 1965 while he was based in South Korea. He later married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese national who was abducted by North Korean agents while walking along the Japanese coastline with her mother in 1978.
Soga was returned to Japan in 2002, leaving her two daughters and her husband behind in Pyongyang. They were reunited in Jakarta earlier this month, and all came to Tokyo a week ago.
The United States continues to argue it has the right to seek Jenkins' custody, and he faces the prospect of court martial for desertion. But such moves have been put off while he remains in a Tokyo hospital seeking medical treatment.
