Is North Korea holding an American prisoner? That’s what a man CNN spoke to in Pyongyang claims.
As tensions on the Korean peninsula continued to rise and Seoul and Washington officials discussed the potential deployment of more troops to South Korea, officials in Pyongyang gave CNN exclusive access to a man North Korea claims is a U.S. citizen arrested on espionage charges.
Speaking to CNN’s Will Ripley, the man identified himself as Kim Dong Chul, a naturalized American, who said he used to live in Fairfax, Virginia.
“I’m asking the U.S. or South Korean government to rescue me,” Kim said during an interview at a hotel in the North Korean capital.
Kim, 62, was frogmarched into the room by stony-faced guards, who insisted that the interview be conducted in Korean, through an official translator.
The translation was later independently corroborated by CNN.
Spying for ‘conservative elements’
Kim told CNN that in 2001 he moved to Yanji, a city near the Chinese-North Korean border that acts as a trade hub between the two countries.
From Yanji, Kim said he commuted daily to Rason, a special economic zone on the North Korean side of the border, where he served as president of a company involved in international trade and hotel services.
According to Kim, he spied on behalf of “South Korean conservative elements,” for which he was arrested in October 2015.
“I was tasked with taking photos of military secrets and ‘scandalous’ scenes,” he said.
Kim named a number of South Koreans he said “injected me with a hatred towards North Korea.”
“They asked me to help destroy the (North Korean) system and spread propaganda against the government.”
Caught red-handed
According to Kim, North Korean officials said they had been monitoring his activities since 2009, two years after he established his cross-border business.
He started working as a spy in April 2013, bribing local residents to “gather important materials,” which he smuggled into China or South Korea.
Asked whether he worked for the U.S. at any time, Kim said categorically that he did not.
Kim was arrested in October 2015 while he was meeting a source to obtain a USB stick and camera used to gather military secrets.
The source, a 35-year-old former North Korean soldier, was also arrested. Kim said he did not know the other man’s fate.
During the almost two yearts of spying in North Korea, Kim only made around $5,300 (35,000 yuan).
Asked why he would risk his freedom for such a relatively paltry sum of money, Kim said that “it wasn’t about the money.”
Kim left a wife and two daughters behind in China, with whom he has had no contact since his detention. Repeated attempts to reach his wife using a phone number provided by Kim were unsuccessful.
Secret U.S. detainee?
Kim’s claims were made in the presence of North Korean officials and CNN cannot determine whether they were made under duress.
If true, Kim would be the only U.S. citizen held prisoner in North Korea, a fact not revealed until today.
Americans Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller were released by Pyongyang in November 2014. By that point, Bae had spent more than two years in prison in North Korea.
Hours after the interview with CNN’s crew, North Korean authorities provided his passport for inspection.
The U.S. State Department said they could not confirm whether Kim is a U.S. citizen, telling CNN that “speaking publicly about specific purported cases of detained Americans can complicate our tireless efforts to secure their freedom.”
On Saturday, CNN spoke to jailed Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, who said that he hoped “to go home some day.”
In good health
Kim appeared in good health, and said he was getting proper nourishment and three meals a day.
As is the norm for international prisoners who haven’t yet been charged, Kim said he was being held in a Pyongyang hotel, where he has access to local newspapers and television.
He was aware of North Korea’s purported hydrogen bomb test, carried out on January 6, saying that it meant it was now time “for the U.S. government to drop its hostile policies against North Korea.”
“Seeing that this H-bomb test has succeeded, now is the time to abandon hostile policies and work to help North Korea,” he said.
“The U.S. needs to find a way to reconcile with North Korea. I think the main way to do that is with a peace treaty.”
Asked about the similarity of his statements to North Korean propaganda and whether any of them had been rehearsed or pre-scripted, Kim said that they had not, and accused Western media of “misunderstanding” the situation in the country.
Westerners held previously in North Korea have said their confessions were given under pressure from the state.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest for some time, with South Korea resuming propaganda broadcasts across the demilitarized zone. Pyongyang regards such broadcasts as tantamount to an act of war and has fired on the giant speakers used for them in the past.
On Sunday, a U.S. B-52 bomber flew over Osan, South Korea in what officials said was a show of solidarity with Seoul following the purported nuclear test. The U.S. bomber was flanked by a South Korean F-15.
