WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. soldier facing disciplinary action crossed into North Korea on Tuesday and was believed to be in North Korean custody, U.S. officials said, creating a fresh headache for Washington in its dealings with the nuclear-armed state.
Here are some other Americans held in the past by North Korea. Most were sentenced to years of hard labor but freed after high-level diplomacy. Two died soon after their release.
– The last American detained by North Korea was Bruce Byron Lowrance, who was caught after entering from China in October 2018. He was deported about a month later after telling his captors, according to North Korean media, that he had been “under the manipulation of the CIA.” The relatively swift resolution followed an unprecedented summit between between then-President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, though by the time of Lowrance’s detention talks had stalled.
– The U.S. State Department banned Americans from traveling to North Korea after U.S. college student Otto Warmbier was detained on a tour of the country in 2015. He was sentenced in 2016 to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan. He died in 2017, aged 22, days after his return to the United States in a coma with U.S. State Department envoy Joseph Yun. Warmbier’s parents sued North Korea over his death, which an Ohio coroner said was caused by lack of oxygen and blood to the brain. A U.S. court ordered Pyongyang to pay $501 million in damages for his torture and death.
– In 2018 three Americans held in North Korea were freed after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang to meet North korean leader Kim during a period of nuclear diplomacy. They were Korean-American missionary Kim Dong-chul, who had been detained in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years’ hard labor and two teachers at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology detained in 2017, Kim Sang-duk, or Tony Kim, and Kim Hak-song.
– Euna Lee and Laura Ling of U.S. media outlet Current TV were arrested in 2009 along the North Korea-China border while reporting on human trafficking. They were accused by Pyongyang of illegally entering North Korea with “hostile” intent and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. They were released in August 2009 after former President Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang to secure their return.
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Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary, returned to the United States in November 2014 after being imprisoned in North Korea for two years. North Korea convicted him of trying to overthrow the state and sentenced him to 15 years’ hard labor.
– Matthew Todd Miller was freed at the same time as Bae, having been in custody since April 2014. He was reportedly tried for espionage and was serving a six-year hard-labor sentence. Miller had gone to North Korea on a tourist visa, which state media said he tore up while demanding Pyongyang grant him asylum.
– Robert Park, a Christian human rights activist trying to raise global attention to the suffering of the North Korean people, was detained after crossing into the country in 2009. He was released in 2010. North Korean media said Park confessed to entering the state illegally and had changed his mind about North Korea after being treated kindly there.
– Aijalon Mahli Gomes, then 30, of Boston had been working as an English teacher in South Korea and was arrested in 2010 for illegally entering North Korea from China. He was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and freed after eight months when former U.S. President Jimmy Carter went to retrieve him. Gomes’ family described his captivity as “a long, dark and difficult period.”
– In 1996, Evan Hunziker, then 26, was held for three months in North Korea on spying charges. After he was apprehended by North Korean farmers, Hunziker spent a month in a detention center near the border before being moved to a Pyongyang hotel. Then-U.S. Representative Bill Richardson secured his release in November 1996. Hunziker committed suicide about a month later.
– In 1994, then U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard went to Pyongyang and successfully negotiated the release of Bobby Hall, a U.S. helicopter pilot shot down when he strayed over the border with South Korea.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Alistair Bell)
