North Korea has arrested and detained a US citizen as he
tried to depart from the country, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported
Sunday.
According to Yonhap, the detention of the American simply
identified only by his surname Kim brings to three the number of Americans
detained by North Korea.
North Korea is yet to issue an official confirmation of the
reported arrest, which would come at a tense time in relations between
Pyongyang and Washington.
Yonhap quoted sources who said Kim was arrested last Friday
at Pyongyang International Airport on his way out of the country.
According to the news agency, Kim, aged in his late 50s and
a former professor at China’s Yanbian University of Science and Technology, had
been involved in aid programmes for the North.
Yonhap said Kim was reported in Pyongyang for about a month
to discuss relief activities. The reason for his arrest was unclear.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and the
unification and foreign ministries said they could not confirm the report.
However, the director of a Seoul-based group called the
World North Korea Research Center said his sources in Pyongyang had confirmed
the arrest.
“The reason North Korea is not saying anything yet is
because it is not done with the investigations,” Ahn Chan-il, a former
defector, told AFP.
“It is important for them to hold a US citizen hostage at
this point to prevent Washington from carrying out a decapitation of Kim
Jong-Un,” Ahn said.
“It’s also a resolve to point a double-action revolver
against the US and China because he is a US citizen who worked in China.”
Two other US citizens — college student Otto Warmbier and
Korean-American pastor Kim Dong-Chul — are currently being held in the North
after being sentenced to long prison terms.
Kim was issued a 10-year sentence last year with hard labour
for spying, while Warmbier was jailed for 15 years last year for stealing a
propaganda sign and for “crimes against the state”.
By Dolapo Adelana
