Travis King: US probes if North Korea knew about defecting soldier as Army worried for his wellbeing

Kenneth Bae is a South Korean-US missionary from Lynnwood, Washington who was arrested on the first day of a five-day tour on 3 November 2012 in Ranson – an area along the northeastern coast of North Korea’s economic zone.

Almost two weeks after his initial arrest, the country’s official news agency confirmed his arrest and said Mr Bae committed “hostile” acts, including smuggling in inflammatory literature and attempting to establish a base for anti-government activities at a hotel in a border town.

Mr Bae’s family came forward and said he has suffered from chronic health issues, including back pain, diabetes as well as heart and liver problems.

He returned to the US in November 2014 following a mission by former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also helped secure Mr Miller’s release.

In a pre-taped statement for his tell-all memoir in 2016, Mr Bae said the detainment was an accident.

“I was arrested by North Korean authority because I made a terrible mistake by carrying a portable hard drive containing hostile, anti-North Korean material by accident,” he said in the YouTube statement.

Charles Robert Jenkins, who passed away at the age of 77, was captive in North Korea for over 39 years.

In January 1965, the US Army sergeant slipped across the demilitarised zone he was supposed to be guarding and went from the South to the North.

His plan was to escape the dangers of getting shot by North Korean border guards or being sent to fight in the Vietnam War – a price he ended up paying for many years.

In 2004, Mr Jenkins made it to Japan and spoke to a US Army Court martial where he revealed the horrors he had to face during his time in detainment.

He spoke about the beatings he faced, along with deprivation and the forced removal of his testicles.

Mr Jenkins said during his arrest, he found himself incarcerated in a single room with three others who had also defected.

In his memoir The Reluctant Communist, he spoke about the decision he made and said, “I was not thinking clearly. But at the time my decisions had a logic to them that made my actions seem almost inevitable.”

Mr Jenkins said he was also forced to spend 10 hours a day memorising the writings of North Korea’s founder and then Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung. If a person failed to correctly recite the words in Korean, it could result in a beating or an increase in their study time.

“Those cruel bastards,” wrote Mr Jenkins in his memoir, “Hated me and the other Americans so deeply they refused to see us as human and enjoyed making our lives hell.”

Mr Jenkins was released in 2004 and died in 2017.

Bruce Byron Lowrance was imprisoned in October 2018 for allegedly illegally entering North Korea from China.

He was imprisoned until November that year and was soon deported back to the US. North Korea’s decision to deport Lowrance after only a month of confinement was quick by the country’s standards.

Some might say Mr Lowrance benefitted from the cosy diplomacy between former US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who had met in a summit in June that year where they discussed goals for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

As the summit was approaching, North Korea released three US detainees at the time: Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song.

But that diplomacy was shortlived after the second summit in 2019, when the US rejected North Korea’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were shooting a documentary on the Sino-North Korean border about North Korean refugees and the possible practice of human trafficking of young women.

The two journalists were reportedly captured by North Korean state security on March 2009 and taken to Pyongyang.

They were charged with “committing hostilities against the Korean national and illegal entry,” according to the North Korean mouthpiece news agency KCNA.

They were sentenced to 12 years of “reform” in a prison camp but were released after 140 days in a detention centre.

Upon their release, Ms Lee said: “The past 140 days have been the most difficult, heart-wrenching time of our lives.”

“We are very grateful that we were granted amnesty by the government of North Korea, and we are so happy to be home.”

American pastor Kwang Duk Lee was arrested in May 1998 as a suspect spy in North Korea, but he was released three months later.

Mr Lee’s arrest came while he was trying to get financing for a soybean processing plant, his family had told The Los Angeles Times at the time of his release.

North Korean authorities said Mr Lee was a spy posing as a businessman and demanded $122,000 for his release.

Mr Lee was freed in August that year, three months after his arrest.

The US Army is investigating whether North Korean authorities had prior knowledge of Private Travis King’s intention to cross the border from South Korea this week, according to a report.

Documents seen by The Messenger provide the most detailed account so far of the events leading up to the moment Mr King ran across the Demilitarized Zone and into the territory of one of the US’s greatest enemies.

A US military official familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authorisation, told The Messenger that the possibility that the North Koreans had prior knowledge of Mr King’s intention to cross the border is being considered.

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Private Travis King, who crossed into North Korea this week, “may not have been thinking clearly,” according to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, adding that she’s worried about his safety.

Ms Wormuth would not be drawn on what may have led Mr King to suddenly cross over into the repressive American adversary’s testimony.

“He is a young soldier, he was facing consequences. I imagine he had a lot of negative feelings,” she said at the Aspen Security Forum. “He may not have been thinking clearly, frankly, but we just don’t know.”

“What we want to do is get that soldier back into our custody. I worry about him, frankly,” she said, recalling the fate of college student Otto Warmbier in 2017 who died in hospital six days after his return to the US.

“It makes me very, very concerned that Private King is in the hands of the North Korean authorities. I worry about how they may treat him.”

Despite the efforts of the Biden administration to reach out to the Korean People’s Army through multiple channels, there has so far been no contact between Washington and Pyongyang.

“I can tell you this morning we’ve now reached out through multiple channels to the KPA to try to ascertain that information and to get closer to an answer,” White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters on Thursday.