crossing the border with North Korea
US soldier was in prison in South Korea
07/19/2023 12:22 p.m
He shouts “Ha-ha-ha” and then crosses the border into North Korea. It is unclear how the missing US soldier is doing now. A day after his spectacular action, new details about his person come to light. In South Korea he is not a blank slate.
The US soldier, who is believed to be in North Korean custody after crossing the border from South to North Korea, was previously in prison in South Korea. According to an official in Seoul, the man was detained for around two months on allegations of assault. He was released on July 10, the official said.
The soldier had crossed the heavily secured border from South to North Korea during a sightseeing tour. This was done “on purpose and without permission,” a spokesman for the US armed forces said on Tuesday. He is now believed to be in North Korean custody. The incident could further exacerbate strained relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
The so-called demilitarized zone separates the two Korean states. In the past few decades, Americans have crossed the border into North Korea several times without permission. There they were usually sentenced to several years in prison and only released after lengthy negotiations.
The UN command in the area also said a US citizen had crossed the border and is believed to be in North Korean custody. US forces and the UN command said they would work with North Korean forces to resolve the incident. According to the US military, the soldier is a man named Travis King. He has been in the army since 2021. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington is closely monitoring and studying the situation.
“I realized it wasn’t a joke”
South Korean police said King was under investigation for assault in September 2022. However, he was reportedly not arrested at the time. The South Korean news agency Yonhap also reported, citing the judiciary, that the US soldier, bullying Koreans and their military, damaged a police patrol car with kicks and was fined.
The US broadcaster CBS reported that the soldier should now have been taken out of the country for disciplinary reasons. However, after passing security checks at the airport, he managed to turn around and join a group of visitors to the demilitarized zone. An eyewitness who said he was on the same tour told CBS the group was visiting one of the buildings on the site when “this man is shouting ‘Ha-ha-ha’ loudly and just walking between some of the buildings.” “At first I thought it was a bad joke, but when he didn’t come back I realized it wasn’t a joke,” the witness said.
A few hours after the alleged arrest of the US soldier on the North Korean side, the regime there fired two ballistic missiles in the direction of the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan on Wednesday. However, experts suspect that this was in response to the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in the area. Pyongyang’s recent rocket launches “probably have nothing” to do with the young US soldier crossing the border, British broadcaster BBC quoted Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul as saying. The North Korean regime has for days expressed dissatisfaction with the US Department of Defense’s plan to send a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea, the New York Times reported.