In North Korea, Travis King isn't the first US citizen to be locked up. Who else has been detained over the years?

[LionDen]

In North Korea, Travis King isn't the first US citizen to be locked up. Who else has been detained over the years?

The US is desperately trying to rectify a situation involving an American soldier who ran into North Korea.

Private Second Class Travis T King was destined to return home after being released from prison in South Korea, when he crossed the Demilitarised Zone border in the bizarre incident.

But Mr King isn't the first American — nor US soldier — to flee over the border.

Some made the attempt motivated by evangelical zeal or simply attracted by the mystery of a severely cloistered police state fuelled by anti-US hatred.

For others who entered as tourists their journey ended in detainment and in one incident death.

So, who are the people who crossed into North Korea in the past?


A tragic death

University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier died after being released from custody.

One of the most unfortunate outcomes for an American in the totalitarian state is the story of Otto Warmbier.

He was a 22-year-old student who died in June 2017, shortly after spending 17 months in North Korean captivity.

Mr Warmbier was on a tour group in 2016 in the country when he was arrested and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster.

He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.

North Korea denied accusations he was tortured but the student was flown home in a coma with brain damage, from which he died.

North Korea insisted it had provided him medical care with "all sincerity" and accused the United States of a smear campaign.

In 2022 Mr Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy were granted $US240,300 ($354,9450) seized from a Korean bank account, which would be a partial payment toward more than $US501 million ($739 million) they were awarded in 2018 by a federal judge.


One of the first detainees

Former US Army deserter Charles Jenkins who was dishonourably discharged.

Charles Jenkins fled to North Korea while serving as a US soldier in the South.

Jenkins, who was an army sergeant, deserted his post in 1965 and fled across the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas.

North Korea treated him as a propaganda asset and used him for leaflets and films.

In 1980, he married Hitomi Soga, a 21-year-old Japanese student who was kidnapped two years earlier by North Korean agents.

She was allowed to return to Japan in 2002 and Jenkins was given permission to rejoin her in 2004.

In Japan he surrendered to US military authorities and was charged with abandoning his unit and defecting to North Korea.

He was dishonourably discharged and sentenced to 25 days in a military jail in Japan.

He died in 2017.


A bible left in a nightclub

Jeffrey Fowle was detained in North Korea for leaving a Bible in a nightclub.

In 2014, Ohio municipal worker Jeffrey Fowle was detained in North Korea for six months for leaving a Bible in a nightclub in the city of Chonjin.

Mr Fowle’s release followed negotiations that involved retired diplomat and former Ohio congressman Tony Hall.

Analysts and defectors say the country is strictly anti-religion.

Secret prayer services and distribution of the Bible can lead to imprisonment or execution.


Tour trip gone wrong

American missionary Kenneth Bae speaks to reporters at Pyongyang.

Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae was arrested in 2012 while leading a tour group in a special North Korean economic zone.

North Korea sentenced Mr Bae to 15 years in prison for hostile acts, which included smuggling in inflammatory literature.

A secret mission by then-director of US National Intelligence James Clapper secured Mr Bae's release home in 2014.


'Ambition' to unearth prison life

Matthew Miller during his 2014 Supreme Court trial in Pyongyang.

Matthew Miller was sentenced to hard labour after claims he wanted to investigate North Korea's human rights conditions in 2014.

The North Korea court alleged the 24-year-old tore up his tourist visa upon arriving at Pyongyang's airport and that he admitted to a "wild ambition" of experiencing North Korean prison life.

He was sentenced to six years of hard labour and was said to be digging in fields eight hours a day, when interviewed by the Associated Press in November 2014.

Mr Miller was freed alongside Bae that year.


Cozy diplomacy at times

A North Korean military guard post near the border with North Korea

North Korea's handling of American detainees is clearly influenced by its friendship with Washington.

Bruce Byron Lowrance benefited from cozy diplomacy in 2018 between then-US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The pair met for a summit in June where they issued aspirational goals for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Five months later, North Korea announced it was expelling Lowrance who had entered the country illegally through China in October.

North Korea's decision to deport Lowrance after only a month of confinement was remarkably quick by the country's standards.

abcnet

[Smartmark]

They all probably deserved it.

[LionDen]

They all probably deserved it.

I don't know. Seems a little harsh punishment having a bible or taking a picture off a wall (and this guy eventually died from treatment at the prison.) I guess you have to follow whatever rules the country your in. I would like to see what rules the passengers get before entering or arriving at the country, must be the size of a book.

How about the guy who went there just to see what it was like in a North Korean prison. lol