Alleged deserter expecting trial

TOKYO – In a letter scrawled from his Tokyo hospital bed last week, alleged Army deserter Charles Robert Jenkins told an American relative that he expected to face a court-martial over charges he defected to North Korea in 1965.

“I would like to see my family before I die,” Jenkins wrote his nephew, James Hyman, in a note dated July 23. “Tell everyone I said hello and if I make it through the courtmarishal I will see you all.”

A copy of the poorly spelled note, written on a lined half-sheet of paper, was obtained Monday by the Los Angeles Times.

It was the first indication of how the 64-year-old Jenkins regards his legal options since he left North Korea on July 9 after almost 40 years behind its borders.

Since then, there has been speculation about whether the Pentagon would press its legal right to have the ex-soldier handed over for court-martial or would strike an agreement that would allow him to remain in Japan with his Japanese wife and two daughters.

The letter was given to Hyman during his visit to Japan last week, during which he says Japanese authorities blocked him from visiting his uncle in the hospital.

Hyman has led a drive to have Jenkins freed, saying that the U.S. military lacks evidence to prove the former sergeant defected.

The July 23 letter was signed “Robert Jenkins,” the name by which the family knew him. Hyman argues that the signature is significant because it buttresses the family’s assertion that Washington’s material evidence – a note Jenkins allegedly wrote his mother in 1965 confessing his defection – was faked because it was signed “Charles.”