NKorea says it will free detained US missionary
February 5, 2010
Send this news item to a Friend
Sign-up for Daily News Updates
February 4, 2010
A "repentant" American missionary set to be freed from North Korea after being arrested at the border on Christmas said he was ashamed of the "biased" view he once held of the communist nation, Pyongyang's state media said Friday. There was no way to verify if the missionary was speaking freely or under duress from his captors.
Breaking its silence about Robert Park's fate, North Korea announced Friday that the American would be released from custody after admitting to entering the country illegally and showing "sincere repentance" for the transgression.
Park, 28, slipped across the frozen Tumen River from China into North Korea carrying letters calling on leader Kim Jong Il to close the country's notoriously brutal prison camps and to step down from power - acts that could risk a death sentence in the totalitarian nation.
However, the government "decided to leniently forgive and release him, taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrong doings into consideration," the official Korean Central News Agency said. Details of his release were not immediately available.
Park, 28, of Tucson, Arizona, appeared healthy if a bit gaunt in photos released by KCNA during what it called an interview with the American. Dressed in a dark suit and tie, he smiled and gesticulated in the photos, a microphone and bottles of water on the table before him.
Back home, his family exulted at the prospect of Park's release.
Click here to read the rest of the article
