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American arrested for bid to reach N. Korea via river swim
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SOUTH Korean border guards arrested an American man who they believe was attempting to swim across a river to rival North Korea, a South Korean defense official said yesterday.
The man was apprehended on Tuesday night while lying on a bank of the Han River in a restricted military area near the border.
The man told investigators he tried to go to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. It said the man, aged around 29, is a computer repairman from Texas who came to South Korea 10 days ago.
In the 1960s, several United States soldiers walked into North Korea while on a patrol near the mine-strewn demilitarized zone, or DMZ. Those army deserters later appeared in North Korean propaganda films and taught English there.
In 1996, American Evan Hunziker entered North Korea by swimming across the Yalu River that marks the Chinese border. Hunziker, who apparently made the swim on a drunken dare, was accused of spying and detained for three months.
Hunziker, 26 at the time, was eventually freed after talks involving a special US envoy. The North Koreans wanted to slap a US$100,000 criminal fine on him but eventually agreed on a US$5,000 payment to settle a bill for a hotel where he was detained. He killed himself about one month after his release.
Last year, South Korean soldiers shot and killed a man with a South Korean passport who officials said ignored warnings while swimming across the Imjin River toward North Korea.
North Korea is currently holding three Americans. The country’s Supreme Court sentenced one of them, Matthew Miller, on Sunday to six years of hard labor after finding him guilty of illegally entering the country to commit espionage. North Korea says Miller tore up his tourist visa upon arrival at Pyongyang’s airport in April.
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