The man, Kim Hak-song, was arrested on Saturday and was under investigation on charges of committing “hostile acts” against the country. The detention would bring the number of Americans held there to four.
SEOUL, South Korea — Another American citizen has been detained in North Korea on charges of committing “hostile acts” against the country, the North’s official news agency reported on Sunday.
The man, identified as Kim Hak-song, was arrested on Saturday and was under investigation by the country’s related government agencies, the state-run Korean Central News Agency, or K. C. N. A., said.
It said that Mr. Kim worked at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a privately funded institution in the capital that was opened in 2010 with donations from Evangelical Christian movements outside the country.
K. C. N. A. provided no further detail about Mr. Kim or the circumstance of his detention.
If confirmed, the detention would raise to four the number of Americans known to be held in the secretive North.
On Wednesday, North Korea confirmed it was holding Kim Sang-duk, who also goes by his American name, Tony Kim, on charges of committing “hostile criminal acts with an aim to subvert the country.”
Tony Kim was detained at the airport in Pyongyang on April 22 while he was trying to leave the country. He had taught accounting for a month at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, according to Park Chan-mo, the university’s chancellor.
It remained unclear whether Kim Hak-song’s arrest was connected to Tony Kim’s. The latest arrests of American citizens come at a particularly tense moment in relations between the United States and North Korea.
As the North has conducted banned tests of ballistic missiles in recent weeks, the United States has dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to waters off the Korean Peninsula as a show of force.
The North has been accused of holding Americans on what many see as dubious charges in order to use them as diplomatic leverage. At least two other Americans are known to be held in the country.
Last year, North Korea sentenced an American college student, Otto F. Warmbier, to 15 years’ hard labor after accusing him of trying to steal a political banner from a hotel in Pyongyang. It later sentenced another American, Kim Dong-chul, to 10 years’ hard labor on charges of spying and other offenses.
Since Washington has no diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, the Swedish Embassy there looks after consular affairs for Americans held by North Korea.
