Foreign

North Korea Arrests U.S Professor

Published

7 years ago

May 3, 2017

The leadership of the Kim Jong Un administration has arrested an American academic working in the Asian country.

North Korea’s state media on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of a US citizen who was lecturing in Pyongyang — the third American held in the country amid growing tensions with Washington.
Kim Sang-Duk, or Tony Kim, was arrested at the capital’s airport on April 22, for “committing criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn the DPRK” , the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, using the country’s official name.

It added that Kim was “under detention by a relevant law enforcement body which is conducting detailed investigation into his crimes” .

The confirmation of Kim’s detention comes as Pyongyang issues increasingly belligerent rhetoric in a tense stand off with the administration of new US President Donald Trump.

Kim had been teaching accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), which said last month that the professor had been held.

The school – founded by evangelical Christians from overseas and opened in 2010 – is known to have a number of American faculty members.

Fellow US citizen Otto Warmbier is also being held in North Korean custody.