The authoritarian regime has released few details about Kim Dong-chul, Kim Hak-song and Tony Kim.<\/b>
\nThree Americans remain imprisoned in North Korea after the release of 22-year-old Ohio native Otto Warmbier, who\u00a0 died Monday \u00a0after returning to the U. S. in a state of \u201cunresponsive wakefulness\u201d last week.
North Korean officials reportedly detained Warmbier in January 2016 at Pyongyang International Airport and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for attempting to steal a government banner.
\u201cWe hold North Korea accountable for Otto Warmbier\u2019s unjust imprisonment, and demand the release of three other Americans who have been illegally detained, \u201d U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson\u00a0 wrote in a statement.
North Korea has released few, if any, details about the status of the remaining detainees, all of whom are Korean-American.
The first prisoner, Kim Dong-chul, worked as a businessman and was detained in 2015, months before Warmbier\u2019s arrest. The other two prisoners \u2015 Kim Hak-song and Tony Kim \u2015 both worked at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and were detained in April and May this year.
North Korean officials allegedly arrested Kim Dong-chul, a businessman, in October 2015 while he was reportedly attempting to receive classified information from a former government agent.
CNN first reported Kim\u2019s imprisonment in January 2016 after North Korean officials granted the network\u00a0 an exclusive interview \u00a0with him at a hotel in Pyongyang.
In the interview, Kim said he was a 62-year-old naturalized U. S. citizen and had previously lived in Fairfax, Virginia. He said he had been the president of an international trade and hotel services company that operated in Rason, a special economic zone near North Korea\u2019s northern border.
\u201cI\u2019 m asking the U. S. or South Korean government to rescue me, \u201d he told CNN.
In March 2016, KCNA reported that Kim had confessed to attempting to steal military secrets under the direction of the U. S. and South Korea. Both countries have denied the accusation.
He was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April 2016 for spying.
North Korean authorities reportedly detained Kim on April 23 at the Pyongyang International Airport as he was attempting to leave the country with his wife.
The 58-year-old was arrested for committing \u201chostile criminal acts with an aim to subvert\u201d North Korea, according to the state-run news agency KCNA.
Kim was born Kim Sang Dok, but goes by his American name, Tony. He studied at Aurora University in Illinois and the University of California, Riverside, according to his Facebook page.
Prior to his arrest, Kim spent a month teaching accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the university\u2019s chancellor, Chan-Mo Park, told The New York Times .
\u201cThe cause of his arrest is not known but some officials at PUST told me his arrest was not related to his work at PUST, \u201d Park told Reuters . \u201cHe had been involved with some other activities outside PUST such as helping an orphanage.\u201d
Last month, an unidentified PUST official told Reuters that Kim\u2019s wife had returned to the United States, but The New York Times reports that she is still believed to be in North Korea .
Kim Hak-song, who also worked at PUST, was detained two weeks after Tony Kim. He was arrested on a China-bound train from Pyongyang and is also being held for committing \u201chostile acts.\u201d It\u2019s unclear if the two arrests are connected.
Kim reportedly studied at a university in California and became a U. S. citizen in the 2000s before moving back to China, where he was born, 10 years later.
Prior to his arrest, Kim managed the experimental farm at PUST\u2019s college of agriculture and life sciences, Park told Reuters. He was concerned about North Korea\u2019s food shortage and wanted to improve the country\u2019s agricultural economy, CNN reported.
\u201cNorth Korea is persecuting their savior, a person who came to help them, \u201d David Lee, one of Kim\u2019s former classmates, told CNN. \u201cThis is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n