US urges North Korea to free American

The United States has called for North Korea to release a US citizen recently sentenced to 15 years of compulsory prison labor for hostile acts against the Pyongyang government.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday that Pae Jun-Ho, known in the United States as Kenneth Bae, was arrested in November 2012 after entering North Korea’s port city of Rason as a ‘tourist.’

The American was convicted for “carrying out serious crimes” against North Korea. “The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labor for this crime,” the KCNA stated. Bae’s trial was held on April 30.

Patrick Ventrell, acting deputy spokesman for the US State Department, told reporters on Thursday, “What we’re urging the DPRK (North Korea) authorities to do is to grant him amnesty and to allow for his immediate release, full stop.”

On April 29, Ventrell described the welfare of US citizens as “a critical and top priority” for the State Department and added that Washington calls on North Korea to free Bae at once “on humanitarian grounds.”

A North Korean court also sentenced two US journalists to hard labor in 2009 for trespassing and hostile acts after being arrested near North Korea’s border with China and held for four months. The two were freed later.

Tensions have risen between Washington and Pyongyang after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February. Pyongyang had previously launched a long-range rocket on December 12, 2012.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of escalating military rhetoric following the participation of nuclear-capable US B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers in the joint military exercises with South Korea that ended on April 30.

The KCNA stated in a commentary on Thursday that the escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula is attributable to the US ‘heinous hostile policy’ toward North Korea.