According to officials, a US soldier who was imprisoned for about two months in South Korea on assault-related charges was reported to be in North Korean custody on Wednesday after illegally crossing the heavily guarded border.
Travis King, a private second class who has served in the US army since 2021, was the soldier who crossed the border “willfully and without authorization,” according to Colonel Isaac Taylor, spokesman for US Forces Korea.
He had been on a Joint Security Area (JSA) orientation tour, according to the United Nations Command, which also stated that it believed he was in North Korean custody and that it was collaborating with Pyongyang’s military to “resolve this incident”.
“King was released on July 10 after serving around two months in a South Korean prison for assault charges,” a Seoul official told AFP.
King was under investigation for assault in September 2022, according to South Korean authorities, but was not jailed at the time.
The low-ranking soldier was supposed to be transported home to the US for disciplinary reasons, according to CBS News, which cited US sources. However, he was able to escape the airport and join the tour group.
Washington was “closely monitoring and investigating the situation,” Pentagon commander Lloyd Austin said in a statement to the media.
As the 1950–1953 Korean War concluded in an armistice rather than a peace treaty and a Demilitarized Zone ran along the border, North and South Korea are still formally at war.
At the United Nations Command-managed JSA, which is located north of Seoul, soldiers from both sides engage in combat. Additionally, it is a well-liked tourist destination, and every day, hundreds of people visit the South Korean side.
At the Panmunjom Truce Village in 2019, former US president Donald Trump visited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and even crossed the border into North Korea, standing there.
An eyewitness who said they were on the same JSA tour told CBS News the group had visited one of the buildings at the site when “this man gives out a loud ‘ha ha ha’ and just runs in between some buildings”.
“I thought it was a bad joke at first but, when he didn’t come back, I realised it wasn’t a joke and then everybody reacted and things got crazy,” they said.
