Who are the three Americans freed from North Korean detention?
More details have emerged about the three Americans released from detention in North Korea, ahead of a upcoming summit between leader Kim Jong Un and US president Donald Trump.
Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song arrived back at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland a short time ago, where they were accompanied by Mr Trump.
Describing the apparent warming in US-North Korean relations, Trump said: ’I think this will be a success. There’s never been a relationship like this and we’re starting from here.
‘I really think a lot of progress has been made.’
Their release comes after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Pyongyang for talks.
Here’s everything we know about the three men.
Kim Dong Chul
Kim is a South Korean-born US citizen and was the longest-serving detainee among the three.
North Korean state media claimed that the 64-year-old ran a company in the North’s northeastern Rason special economic zone before he was arrested on October 2, 2015.
He was handed a 10-year prison term with hard labour in April 2016 for allegedly ‘perpetrating state subversive plots and espionage’ against North Korea.
Before the sentencing, the former Virginia resident publicly apologised for slandering North Korea’s leadership as well as collecting and passing confidential information to South Korea, and joining a smear campaign against the North’s human rights situation.
Tony Kim
Tony Kim, who also goes by the Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained on April 22, 2017, at the Pyongyang airport for committing ‘criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn’ North Korea.
The specific criminal acts that Kim was alleged to have committed have never been revealed.
He taught accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, which is been the only privately funded college in North Korea since its founding in 2010 with donations from Christian groups.
The college has previously confirmed that Kim’s detention is not linked with his work at the university.
He previously taught Korean at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in Yanji, China, close to the North Korea border.
In 1990, he graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a master’s degree in business administration in 1990.
He made at least seven trips to North Korea to teach before his arrest, and was accompanied by his wife when he was detained. She was allowed to leave the secretive state.
Kim Hak Song
Kim worked in agricultural development at an experimental farm run by the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
He was detained on May 6, 2017, for engaging in unspecified ‘hostile acts’ against North Korea, It did not say whether his case was related to Tony Kim’s.
The university also said his detention was not related to his work at the school.
It was not known whether Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song were formally convicted and sentenced.
