American freed by North Korea reunited with family
Print Edition
A US man detained for nearly half a year in North Korea has landed back home.
A plane carrying Jeffrey Fowle landed yesterday morning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where he had an emotional reunion with his family.
Moments after Fowle stepped off a plane at the base just after 6:30am, he was met and hugged by his three children, wife and other relatives.
Base Colonel John Devillier said Fowle had a teary reunion with his family. He said Fowle was happy and seemed thrilled to be back in the US. Devillier said Fowle’s family hadn’t told the children why they were being brought to the base and that it was a surprise for them to see their father walk off the plane.
Pyongyang has portrayed the decision to free the American as an act of high-level diplomatic largesse, saying the release was ordered by leader Kim Jong Un following the “repeated requests” of US President Barack Obama.
However, the US State Department declined to provide any details of how Fowle’s release was brokered, citing ongoing efforts to secure the return of two other Americans — Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae — serving hard-labor prison terms in North Korea.
The State Department announced on Tuesday that the 56-year-old Fowle had been released. The news came about six months after he was taken into custody after leaving a Bible at a nightclub. Christian evangelism is considered a crime in North Korea.
He had been awaiting trial — the only one of three Americans held by Pyongyang who had not been convicted of charges.
The two others were each sentenced to years in North Korean prisons after court trials that lasted no more than 90 minutes. The three Americans entered North Korea separately.
Fowle was flown out of North Korea on a US military jet that was spotted at Pyongyang’s international airport.
There was no immediate explanation for the release of Fowle, who was whisked to the US territory of Guam before heading back to his wife and three children in Ohio.
State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Tuesday that Fowle was seen by doctors and appeared to be in good medical health. She declined to give more details about his release except to thank the government of Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, for its “tireless efforts.”
Harf would not say whether any American officials had intervened directly with the North Koreans.
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