FAIRFAX, Va. (WUSA9/USAT) — FAIRFAX, Va. (WUSA9/USAT) - One of the three American detainees released from North Korea is a Virginia native.
President Trump welcomed them home Thursday morning as they touched down on U.S. soil.
Kim Dong-Chul of Fairfax, Va., was arrested in October 2015 and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April 2016 on charges of spying and other offenses.
A month before his trial, he supposedly apologized for trying to steal military secrets for South Koreans. He had been living in Rason, North Korea, in a special economic zone where he ran a trading and hotel services company.
Two other Americans were also released Wednesday.
Kim Hak-Song was accused of "hostile acts" in May 2017. He had been doing agricultural development work at the research farm of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and was living in Pyongyang.
Kim is an ethnic Korean born in China. He studied in California and became a U.S. citizen in the 2000s but never forgot his roots. "He was a very diligent, hardworking man determined to help people in North Korea," his friend David Kim told CNN.
Tony Kim was detained at the Pyongyang airport in April 2017 as he was set to depart the country. He subsequently was accused of "hostile acts."
Kim had spent a month teaching accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and most recently had been living in North Korea with his wife, still believed to be there. He supposedly had been volunteering at an orphanage. The university is funded largely by evangelical Christians from the United States and China.
Their release is the communist country's latest gesture of good will toward the United States in advance of an unprecedented summit between leaders Kim Jong Un and President Trump.
