WASHINGTON — State Department officials made a secret visit to North Korea last week in a failed attempt to secure the release of an imprisoned American who had reportedly attempted suicide in custody, a department spokesman said Monday.
A U.S. consular official, two doctors and a translator were in Pyongyang Aug. 9-11 visiting Aijalon Mahli Gomes in a hospital, but were unable to secure his release, spokesman P.J. Crowley said, providing few other details.
North Korea sentenced Gomes in April to eight years of hard labor and fined him $700,000 for entering the country illegally and for an unspecified “hostile act.” Gomes had been teaching English in South Korea before his Jan. 25 arrest in the North. His motivation for going to North Korea is unclear, but he had attended rallies in Seoul in support of a fellow Christian named Robert Park, who deliberately crossed into North Korea from China to call attention to the North’s human rights record. Park was expelled from the North after about 40 days.
“We want to have him home as soon as possible,” Crowley said of Gomes. “We’ve made that point clear to North Korea, and we’re going to continue to make that point clear to North Korea.”
The United States is worried about Gomes’ health, Crowley said. He wouldn’t provide details.
