North Korea has moved imprisoned US citizen Kenneth Bae from a hospital back to a labor camp, a US official said on Friday, a move that could further complicate efforts to secure his release.
In an interview on Friday with the Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper based in Japan, Bae confirmed that he was transferred back to a “special correctional facility” in Pyongyang on Jan. 20.
Bae, a tour operator described by a North Korean court as a militant Christian evangelist, was arrested in November 2012 and sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor on charges of seeking to topple the government.
Photo: Reuters / Kyodo / Files
“The [US] Department of State has learned that the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] transferred Mr Bae from a hospital to a labor camp, a development with which we are deeply concerned,” department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Psaki said that Washington was “gravely concerned” about the health of the Korean-American, who has been in detention for more than 15 months.
“We continue to urge DPRK authorities to grant Mr Bae special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds,” she added.
In his interview with the Chosun Sinbo, Bae expressed gratitude to the North Korean authorities for treating him “humanely” and pleaded with Pyongyang to allow him to return home through negotiations with the US government.
Bae said his daily routine included eight hours of manual labor, followed by rest in the evening with books and TV, but that chronic loin pain made the long hours of work it hard for him.
The interview was conducted by a Chosun Sinbo reporter who accompanied a Swedish embassy official visiting Bae in the camp. The diplomat talked with Bae separately before the interview.
Bae said he had been told by the Swedish diplomat that US Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King planned to visit the country as early as next week or by the end of this month at the latest to discuss his case.
His family says the 45-year-old is seriously ill.
Bae, also known as Pae Jun-ho, was detained as he entered North Korea’s port city of Rason.
He began serving his sentence in a prison camp in May last year, but in August was admitted to hospital after losing more than 23kg and developing kidney and liver problems.
On Thursday, US President Barack Obama renewed a call for Bae’s release at the country’s annual national prayer breakfast, saying: “Let us never forget those who are persecuted today, among them Americans of faith.”
“His family wants him home and the United States will continue to do everything in our power to secure his release because Kenneth Bae deserves to be free,” Obama said.
Last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry met Bae’s relatives at the State Department, in an apparent signal to Pyongyang to release him.
In a brief appearance before reporters in Pyongyang last month, Bae apologized for and acknowledged that he had participated in anti-government acts — a public confession that observers see as a prerequisite for any release.
His family, which has campaigned hard for his freedom, also apologized in a statement.
The State Department contacted Bae’s family on Friday “as soon as we received the Swedish consular report,” Psaki said.
Since Washington does not have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, the Swedish embassy acts on its behalf in any communications with the reclusive North Korean authorities.
Psaki said in her statement that Swedish embassy officials had met 10 times with Bae since his detention.
“We continue to work actively to secure Mr Bae’s release,” she said, adding that the offer to send King to the North was still open.
King was invited to North Korea to discuss Bae’s case at the end of August last year, but Pyongyang rescinded the invitation at the 11th hour without explanation.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.