North Korean state media reported Wednesday that the dictatorship was detaining a U. S. citizen for alleged acts of hostility aimed at overthrowing the country.
North Korea confirmed on Wednesday it is holding an accounting professor, bringing to three the number of Americans held in its prisons as international tensions escalate.
It was widely known that Kim Sang Dok, who also goes by the name Tony Kim, was nabbed at Pyongyang International Airport on April 22, but state-controlled media confirmed the development. The Korean Central News Agency said he is suspected of “acts of hostility aimed at overthrowing the country.”
The 58-year-old captive joins University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier and businessman Kim Dong Chui in the Hermit Kingdom’s infamous gulags as the world continues to pressure North Korea over its rogue nuclear weapons program.
In the past, North Korea has generally quickly released any American citizens it detained – waiting at most for a U. S. official or statesman to come and to personally bail out detainees. But that appears to be changing.
Wednesday’s KCNA dispatch said authorities were detaining Kim and are conducting a detailed investigation into his alleged crime. The detention comes amid rising tensions between North Korea and the U. S. related to the reclusive regimes nuclear weapons program.
Kim was invited to Pyongyang University of Science and Technology to teach, KCNA reported, and the school’s chancellor and the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang earlier gave the information about Kim’s detention but didn’t provide a reason for his arrest.
The U. S. State Department had not yet commented “due to privacy considerations.”
Warmbier, 21, was detained on Jan. 2,2016, at Pyongyang International Airport, while visiting the country as a tourist with Young Pioneer Tour.
