Travis King update: Mother of detained US soldier speaks out with North Korea silent on detention

The UN Command in a statement said: “A US National on a JSA (Joint Security Area) orientation tour crossed, without authorisation, the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).”

Authorities said that “we are working with KPA (North Korean army) counterparts to resolve this incident”.

A US official told CBS News that the service member was able to return and join the border tour after going through airport security.

According to the local press, a foreign national crossed the border at 1527 local time [0637 GMT].

Colonel Isaac Taylor of United States Forces Korea Public Affairs told The Independent: “A U.S. Service member on a JSA orientation tour willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA counterparts to resolve this incident.”

A US soldier facing disciplinary action fled across the inter-Korean border into North Korea on Tuesday, where he is being held in custody, US officials said.

Private 2nd Class Travis King had just been released from a South Korean prison where he had been held on assault charges and was facing additional military disciplinary actions in the US.

Mr King, who is in his early 20s, was escorted to the airport to be returned to Fort Bliss, Texas, but instead of getting on the aircraft he left and joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom, where he ran across the border.

While crossing the demilitarised zone (DMZ) he gave out a loud “ha ha ha”, a witness has said.

He had joined a group taking a tour of the Joint Security Area – the border village in the DMZ separating the two Koreas, which is heavily guarded by soldiers from both sides.

Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, died in June 2017, shortly after he was flown home in a vegetative state after 17 months in North Korean captivity.

Warmbier was seized by North Korean authorities from a tour group in January 2016 and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

While not providing a clear reason for Warmbier’s brain damage, North Korea denied accusations by Warmbier’s family that he was tortured and insisted that it had provided him medical care with “all sincerity.” The North accused the United States of a smear campaign and claimed itself as the “biggest victim” in his death.

In 2022, a U.S. federal judge in New York ruled that Warmbier’s parents — Fred and Cindy Warmbier — should receive $240,300 seized from a North Korean bank account, which would be a partial payment toward the more than $501 million they were awarded in 2018 by a federal judge in Washington.

A month before Bae and Miller’s release, North Korea also freed Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio municipal worker who was detained for six months for leaving a Bible in a nightclub in the city of Chongjin. Fowle’s release followed negotiations that involved retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall.

While North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion, analysts and defectors describe the country as strictly anti-religious. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean imprisonment or execution, defectors say.

In 2009, American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea with a Bible in his hand to draw attention to North Korea’s human rights abuses. Park, who was deported from the North in February 2010, has said he was tortured by authorities.

US soldier Travis King faced two assault allegations and was fined by a South Korean court for damaging a police car, according to a court ruling and a lawyer who represented him, just months before he fled into North Korea.

Mr King’s motivations for his high-stakes gambit remain unclear.

US officials said he had finished serving time in detention in South Korea for an unspecified infraction and was transported by the US military to the airport to return to his home unit in the United States, when he apparently decided to join a tour to the North Korean border.

Mr King pleaded guilty to assault and destruction of public goods stemming from an October incident, and on 8 February the Seoul Western District Court fined him 5m won ($4,000), according to a copy of the ruling reviewed by Reuters.

The Seoul court said on 25 September last year Mr King punched a man in the face several times at a club, but the case was settled.

Two weeks later, on 8 October, police officers responded to a report of another altercation involving Mr King, and tried to question him. He continued with his “aggressive behaviour” without answering questions from police, according to the court document.

After police placed him in the backseat of their patrol car he began shouting expletives and insults against Koreans, the Korean army, and the Korean police, the ruling said. During his tirade, he kicked the vehicle’s door several times, causing about 584,000 won in damages, the ruling said.

The court said the defendant had admitted to the charges, had no previous criminal record, and paid 1m won to fix the vehicle, citing reasons in favour of him in the sentencing.

Bae, a Korean-American missionary from Lynnwood, Washington, was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group in a special North Korean economic zone.

North Korea sentenced Bae to 15 years in prison for “hostile acts,” including smuggling in inflammatory literature and attempting to establish a base for anti-government activities at a hotel in a border town. Bae’s family said he suffered from chronic health issues, including back pain, diabetes, and heart and liver problems.

Bae returned to the United States in November 2014 following a secret mission by James Clapper, then-U.S. director of national intelligence who also secured Miller’s release.

North Korea remained silent regarding the highly unusual entry of an American soldier across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas even as it test-fired two missiles.

Over twelve hours have passed since Private 2nd Class Travis King fled into North Korea while on a tour in the border village of Panmunjom, yet there was no information regarding his fate from the reclusive state.

Mr King’s border crossing was unlikely related to North Korea’s missile launches, which were interpreted as a protest against the deployment of a US nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea the day before.

Yang Moo-jin, the president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea, speculated that North Korea would likely exploit the soldier for short-term propaganda purposes and later use him as a bargaining chip.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul said: “With so many moving pieces, it’s important not to attribute causation to mere correlation of events.

“North Korea’s latest firing of ballistic missiles is probably unrelated to an American soldier crossing the inter-Korean border, but such an incident doesn’t help matters either. The Kim regime is likely to treat a border crosser as a military, intelligence, and public health threat even though it is more likely that such an individual is mentally distressed and acting impulsively due to personal issues,” he said.

“Such unexpected events highlight the need for diplomatic channels between governments and regular communication between militaries,” he added.

In September 2014, then a 24-year-old from Bakersfield, California, Matthew Miller was sentenced to six years of hard labor by North Korea’s Supreme Court on charges that he illegally entered the country for spying purposes.

The court claimed that Miller tore up his tourist visa upon arriving at Pyongyang’s airport in April that year and admitted to a “wild ambition” of experiencing North Korean prison life so that he could secretly investigate the country’s human rights conditions.

North Korea’s initial announcement about Miller’s detainment that month came as then-President Barack Obama was traveling in South Korea on a state visit.

Miller was freed in November that same year along with another American, Kenneth Bae, a missionary and tour leader.

Weeks before his release, Miller talked with The Associated Press at a Pyongyang hotel where North Korean officials allowed him to call his family. Miller said he was digging in fields eight hours a day and being kept in isolation.

The American soldier who defected on Tuesday did so from the Panmunjom area inside the demilitarised zone, a historic border village which is being jointly overseen by the UN and North Korea since its creation at the close of the Korean War.

Panmunjom is located inside the 248km-long (154-mile) demilitarised zone and has been a site of occasional incidents of bloodshed and cross-border firing – but also of diplomacy and tourism.

Known for its blue huts straddling concrete slabs that form the demarcation line, Panmunjom draws visitors from both sides who want to see the Cold War’s last frontier.

No civilians live at Panmunjom.

The village draws thousands of visitors each year, with North and South Korean soldiers facing off as tourists on both sides snap photographs.

The southern side of the village saw around 100,000 visitors a year before the coronavirus pandemic, when South Korea restricted gatherings to slow the spread of Covid-19. The tours resumed fully last year.

In November 2017, North Korean soldiers fired 40 rounds as one of their colleagues raced toward the South. The soldier was hit five times before he was found beneath a pile of leaves on the southern side of Panmunjom.

The soldier survived and is now in South Korea.

Born in Rich Square, N.C., Charles Jenkins was one of the few Cold War-era U.S. soldiers who fled to North Korea while serving in the South.

Jenkins, then an Army sergeant, deserted his post in 1965 and fled across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. North Korea treated Jenkins as a propaganda asset, showcasing him in leaflets and films.

In 1980, Jenkins married 21-year-old Hitomi Soga, a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted by North Korean agents in 1978.

Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002. In 2004, Jenkins was allowed to leave North Korea and rejoin his wife in Japan, where he surrendered to U.S. military authorities and faced charges that he abandoned his unit and defected to North Korea. He was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 25 days in a U.S. military jail in Japan. He died in Japan in 2017.