TEHRAN, May 3, YJC - North Korea says it has detained an American citizen for attempts to commit “hostile acts” in the Asian country at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The
official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Wednesday that US
citizen Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, had been arrested at
Pyongyang’s airport on April 22.
He was detained for "committing
criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn the DPRK,” the KCNA added,
using an acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the
official name of North Korea.
The man was teaching accounting at
the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, AP reported citing
the university’s chancellor.
Law enforcement authorities were conducting an investigation into the crime, the agency said.
The recent detention brought the number of Americans held in the country to three.
Otto
Warmbier, who was 21 at the time of his arrest in January 2016, was
sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in prison after he confessed to
trying to steal a propaganda banner.
Kim Dong Chul, who was born
in South Korea but is also believed to have US citizenship, is also
serving a sentence of 10 years for espionage.
The recent arrest came as tensions have been on the rise on the Korean Peninsula in recent weeks.
Unsettled
by North Korean missile and military nuclear programs, the United
States has adopted a war-like posture, sending a strike group and
conducting joint military drills with North Korea’s regional adversaries
Japan and South Korea.
Pyongyang defends its missile and nuclear programs as a means of protecting the country from US hostility.