An American recently sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean court pretended to have secret US information and was deliberately arrested in a bid to become famous and meet US missionary Kenneth Bae in a North Korean prison, state media said yesterday.
Matthew Miller, 25, of Bakersfield, California, had prepared his story in advance and written in a notebook that he was seeking refuge after failing in an attempt to collect information about the US government, state media said.
“He perpetrated the above-said acts in the hope of becoming a ‘world famous guy’ and the ‘second Snowden’ through intentional hooliganism,” Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, referring to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by the US for leaking secrets of its surveillance programs.
“This is an intolerable insult and mockery of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and he therefore deserved punishment,” KCNA said, using the North’s official acronym.
Miller was arrested when he tore up the tourist visa he used to enter the isolated country in April, state media said at the time.
He was sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean court on Sunday last week.
“The results of the investigation made it clear that he did so not because of a simple lack of understanding and psychopathology, but deliberately perpetrated such criminal acts for the purpose of directly going to prison,” state media said.
Miller’s case was exacerbated by the fact his actions followed “reckless remarks” by US Secretary of State John Kerry that described reclusive North Korea as a “country of evil,” state media said.
Kerry in February criticized North Korea as an “evil place” following the publication of an extensive human rights report by UN investigators who said North Korean security officials should be tried for crimes related to the systematic starvation, torture and imprisonment of North Koreans.
State media said Miller had deliberately sought his arrest so he could investigate North Korean prison and human rights conditions, and meet with and negotiate the release of US missionary Bae, who is serving a hard-labor sentence after being convicted of crimes against the state last year.
Unlike the two other Americans held in Pyongyang, relatively little is known about Miller, and his family has not spoken publicly about him.
Reuters reported this week that he spent months in South Korea pretending to be an Englishman named “Preston Somerset” and invested time and money hiring artists to help create his own anime adaption of Alice in Wonderland, the Lewis Carroll fantasy with which he seemed fascinated, according to acquaintances.
He did not seem to have close friends, a regular job or means of support during the months he spent in Seoul over a period of at least two years, they said.
He gave no inkling of any interest in nuclear-capable and unpredictable North Korea.
He is one of three US citizens now being held by North Korea. A third American, Jeffrey Fowle, was arrested for leaving a Bible in the toilet of a sailor’s club in the port city of Chongjin and is currently awaiting trial.
The US has said Pyongyang is using its citizens as “pawns” to win a high-level visit from Washington, which has repeatedly offered to send US Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Robert King to negotiate the release of Miller, Bae and Fowle.
North Korea has so far rejected those offers.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the