Soldier Travis King in US Custody After Expulsion by North Korea – News18

 US soldier Travis King, who was detained by North Korea after crossing from the South in July, is in American custody, a US official said Wednesday.

“I can immediately confirm that Private Travis King is in US custody,” a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.

King ran across the border on July 18 after joining a sightseeing tour of the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas.

Last month, Pyongyang confirmed it was holding the US soldier, saying King had defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the U.S. Army”.

But after completing its investigation, Pyongyang has “decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, under the law of the Republic”, the Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday, using the North’s formal name.

It did not give any details about where or when King would be released.

After a drunken pub fight, an incident with police and a stay in South Korean jail, Private Second Class King was being taken to the airport in July to fly back to Texas.

But instead of travelling to Fort Bliss for disciplinary hearings, King snuck away, joined a Demilitarised Zone sightseeing trip and slipped over the border.

King’s border crossing came with relations between the two Koreas at one of their lowest points ever, with diplomacy stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calling for increased weapons development, including tactical nuclear warheads.

Seoul and Washington have ramped up defence cooperation in response, staging joint military exercises with advanced stealth jets and US strategic assets.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a treaty, and most of the border between them is heavily fortified.

But the Joint Security Area where King made his escape, the frontier is marked only by a low concrete divider and is relatively easy to cross, despite the presence of soldiers on both sides.

Pyongyang has a long history of detaining Americans and using them as bargaining chips in bilateral negotiations.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)