Alleged US deserter says he will surrender soon

TOKYO -- Alleged US Army deserter Charles Robert Jenkins said yesterday that he would surrender to US military authorities to face charges that he deserted his post along the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea in the 1960s.

Separately, in an interview published in the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review, Jenkins was quoted as saying he detested the North Korean government and tried to escape shortly after he arrived.

Jenkins, who left North Korea two months ago for the first time since he allegedly defected in 1965, said in a statement issued through his military counsel that he hoped ''very shortly" to leave his Tokyo hospital room to go to a US Army base outside the Japanese capital. He didn't provide a time frame.

''It is my intention," he wrote, ''to begin the process that will bring closure to my pending legal situation."

The 64-year-old North Carolina native faces allegations that he deserted the Army, a charge carrying a maximum penalty of life in prison. He also could be prosecuted for charges ranging from aiding the enemy to encouraging other soldiers to desert their posts.

His offer to surrender was a major step toward solving a diplomatic quandary between US military officials eager to prosecute him and Tokyo, which hopes to win him leniency so he can live in Japan with his two North Korean-born daughters and his Japanese wife, who was kidnapped by North Korean spies in the 1970s. With the United States interested in intelligence on the reclusive communist North, a Bush administration official has said the former soldier might improve his legal situation if he gave US officials useful information.

James B. Craven III, who is representing Jenkins's family in the United States, said Jenkins's statement suggested he had struck a deal with military prosecutors.